Critical Essay

NOBODY’S TIME
XX1 Gallery, Warsaw, Poland.
“Deserts as a metaphor of emptiness mark all human arts, making them at the same time an extension of the desert. Culture is a mirage and an eternal simulacrum…
The color here seems to be more subtle and detached from matter; broken in the air it slides on the surface of things, hence the ghostly impression as well as the feeling of haziness, transparency, tranquility and an abundance of tones. This explains the breaking away of time from reality which is so close to total illusion.”
When Jean Baudrillard writes about the American desert and refers the perception of its image to works of culture, when he tastes the raw and grand landscape of colour he acts as if he were writing about this special type of paintings which by not presenting anything place the viewers in a situation of facing a natural element. Although the paintings of Aneta Włodyka do not resemble the desert in any respect, just like the desert they confront us with an acute feeling of nothingness. The monumentally structured forms impress not only with the sophisticated depth of color, but most of all, with the varied and complicated structure of how the canvas is stretched. Consequently, they are not only utopian screens or surfaces without depth, but very concrete three-dimensional objects.
The surfaces of the paintings, since we cannot speak of one surface in this case, are aligned to light under various angles simultaneously. As a result, the paintings live in a dialogue with light and the perception of it changes with the time of day. The works of Aneta Włodyka are an installation in which objects are equally important to the space in which they are situated.
They may be compared to blank sheets of paper which are just being filled with a content generated by light. It could be said that they possess a specific negative energy because the surfaces absorb and deform space and light and that they take more than they give. The paintings reinforce our feeling of uncertainty and the relativity of how we perceive the world. Their message is not fixed and independent, but can be inscribed into what Alicia Kępiska, after the Japanese architect Toyo Ito, has called “the culture of the floating world.”
Aneta Włodyka’s paintings are created with an awareness of all the surrounding historic and geographic connotations which are bound to accompany them. Yet it is quite obvious that they belong to a new era which has been freed from history, an era in which the drawing from earlier conventions can be a casual experience because these conventions have been released from the contexts previously ascribed to them. That is why, when looking at the new series of Aneta Włodyka’s paintings we are confronted with an extension of the desert, where, according to Jean Baudrillard, “culture is a mirage and an eternal simulacrum.”

Marek Wasilewski