ASIAN ART NEWS

Review by Ian Findlay

These works made of acrylic lacquer and quartz sand on canvas show two visions of very different worlds. One is open and fresh, with lines—sometimes tangled, sometimes free—dancing or gliding across the picture plane in a lively spontaneous manner. In these works, we see Wisniewska's free-flowing imagination as she realizes moments of quirky lyricism within still worlds. In such work one recalls the art of the American painter Cy Twombly through which the viewer comes face to face with the daunting complexity of an apparently simple grouping of lines.

The other vision is one of a sheer minimal intensity of color and line trapped within small areas of canvas that seem to overflow with the dynamic of suddenly uncorked emotions. Here there is a more forceful, subtle, and lyrical imagination at work where the keen abstraction achieved slowly draws in the viewer, demanding that these works be seen and felt rather merely looked at. One is reminded of the quiet of emotion to be found in the work of Agnes Martin.

The title Perfection Underlying Life neatly encapsulates the essence of Karina Wisniewska's notion that behind the surface of our physical world and emotions there are fresh realities to be discovered, but that these are rarely sought out. Her dancing, flowing lines take our eyes far beyond the edges of her canvas into imagining what lies beyond, much like the notes of a sublime piece of music.

The combination of acrylic lacquer and quartz sand form a texture that possesses a subtle sense of movement when she has applied her colors: blue, red, white, red, and orange, among others. The surfaces appear as if they have been woven, giving strength to the merest line and depth to the surface. Even after repeated viewing the patterning of the Wisniewska's surfaces, crisscrossed by flowing lines of various thickness and intensity, yield up new details of structure and movement.

The complexity of her beautifully textured surfaces and her application of color is seen in exquisite detail in the Fragment series (2005), miniature blue works that may be also seen as "fragments" of a larger world, isolated fragments of time and space, hovering like the disparate elements of a dynamic piece of music waiting to be brought dramatically together.

There is fragility about much of Wisniewska's art, which by turns is enhanced through the combination of her strong single colors and her overlapping lines. There is also a suggestion of melancholy, aloneness, and loss highlighted by the seemingly random construction of the picture plane. This disturbs but does not overwhelm the sheer quality of her art, which possesses a unique sense of timelessness. Through this the images of one's imaginings are retained in the mind to be viewed again and again in contemplative silence.

Ian Findlay