Mieczyslaw Wisniewski (1929-2018), UKLAB AA/III, 2011

acrylic/canvas, wood, 50.5 x 50 x 6 cm
signed, dated and described on the back on the stretcher bar: Mieczyslaw Wisniewski "Arrangement AA/III, 2011 / 50 x 49.5 cm, wood, canvas, acrylic

EXHIBITED:
- Mieczyslaw Wisniewski gry z (pod)obraz(i)em, Galeria Antiqua et Moderna, September - October 2023, Warsaw

LITERATURE:
- Mieczyslaw Wisniewski gry z (pod)obraz(i)em, Galeria Antiqua et Moderna, May - June 2023 [cat. exhibition], Warsaw 2023, repr. p. nlb.


Mieczyslaw Wisniewski studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun from 1949 to 1954. Throughout his professional life he was associated with his alma mater as a teacher. After graduation, he practiced representational painting, striving for a synthesis of form. Around 1960 he began to create abstract compositions, which were part of the current of matter art. These works, made of canvas, often of tarpaulin, were sparing in color and betrayed the artist's tendencies toward geometrization and relief effects. In the 1960s, Wisniewski deepened, as he himself recalled, "his studies of space, the overlapping and interpenetration of forms and structures." Monochromatic collage and assemblage were created at the time. In the mid-1970s he began working on series - "Arrangements" and "Spherical Arrangements." He continued them over the following decades, creating paintings-objects. His work is an example of an eminently individualized redaction of abstract art of Constructivist provenance.

"The structural elements of my paintings, such as figures and planes, lines and spheres, refer to spatial thinking, expressing themselves in terms of Euclidean geometry, coherent, based on concretes, physically and mathematically precise, respecting the logical order. At the same time, however, the taut, slightly curved, colorful and shiny planes in the paintings when viewed from different points of view are arranged in moving combinations of different spherical surfaces. They set in motion on the picture plane a play of variable, flickering, unpredictable lights, dependent on the mechanics of chance. This creates in the picture an additional plastic structure, elusive and escaping the logic of traditional geometry. It is superimposed on the matter of the painting material as a 'secondary' painting form."
Mieczyslaw Wisniewski