Continuing through October 31, 2015
A gallery statement reads, “Our mission is to show artists that have cultural and historical significance, conceptual rigor, or are a singular voice of their generation.” This certainly describes Alicja Bielawska’s body of work as well as this newest installation. Bielawska lives and works in Warsaw and Amsterdam, and has studied at the University of Warsaw, the Gerrit Reitveld Academie and at Central Saint Martins in London. Twenty-one pieces in various dimensions, including sculptures and works on paper, are arranged in order to induce the viewer to visually interconnect the infinite possibilities of “reference points” as the title of the exhibition suggests. The work is light and spare, with wall-mounted drawings, some hung from the ceiling, while others may stand freely or lean against the gallery wall. Her drawings are usually executed over a white surface and feature solid, colorful lines that form simple images that take on the semblance of something familiar yet unreachable, like distant memories. More than a meditation on states of perception, this work is a conscious reflection on perception itself.
In "Textiles (4)," 2015, she cleanly employs four shades of inktense pencil over silk organza to represent solid lines that form a structure that supports two string-like forms. This image, with an economy of expression, exploits the tension between choosing to see it as flat or dimensionally. This same deceptive and playful theme runs through all the work in the show. It is amplified by the interactions among the pieces, which exponentially complicate the permutations of perceptual possibilities as you move through the gallery. Perhaps Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who contended the central role perception plays in understanding the world and our place in it, would be proud.
