Colorful impossibility (1987)

Jan Niksiński, painter

Critique from an exhibition at the Inter Art Galerie in Stuttgart in 1997

     Warsaw stays on the margin, it only appears on a couple of pictures using mixed technique – showing buildings’ facades, hallways, and dark courtyards. Jan Niksiński, born in 1952 in Przasnysz, does have a studio in the Polish capital, but he is neither a painter of the city, nor a realist. His exhibition at Inter-Art Gallery (open until 3 October) indicates that we are dealing with a young artist whose fantasy and creativity aim to change the experienced reality in paintings, drawings and prints. Niksiński, who studied in Gdańsk, Warsaw and Vienna, in 1982 was an assistant in the Summer Academy in Salzburg, and had several individual exhibitions in West Germany, does not give up presenting the leftovers that the society leaves behind. (The wounded romanticism of a seaside landscape), but finds refuge from such subjects in dreams and visions (Colored picture of the impossibility). Or, he paints in dim colors (Queen of the night). These depictions are in contrast with the fulgent watercolors (And then the white banners). Also, a certain stylistic pluralism is predominant in his works (etchings, lithographs). One can hope that even if the Warsaw artist keeps changing the media (which he mastered), as he has done so far, with time, he will elaborate his own specific style.