LIMITLESS RECYCLING OF MEMORIES (2009)

Thomas Tritsch – Review of my exhibition “Recycling 2” at the Remiza Gallery in Zwingenberg

ZWINGENBERG: Jan Niksinski assembles his paintings from used ideas, stored thoughts and memories. They show abstract symbolism, which in combination with graphic adaptation creates a visual whole. In this way, the artist opens his mental self to public access, without depriving the viewer of the possibility to get personal views. A very nice selection of his latest works can be seen at Remise until 27 December. The exhibition opened on Sunday in the presence of numerous guests.

            “Recycling 2” is what Jan Niksinski calls the current selection, which gives a good idea of the Polish artist’s creative approach. The Warsaw-based artist uses pictorial worlds that he has captured with his own eyes and translated into an abstract language of colour and form. He sometimes incorporates paintings and sketches that he has painted himself into other works and develops them further. In this respect, a painting is often the result of conscious self-inspiration, the process and final form of which often only takes on clear contours during the design process.

THE BIRTH OF THE HEAD

            His series of paintings ‘Simple Ideas’ seems to be the result of a mental process, and a source of inspiration for future head births. Niksinski’s understanding of art is free of finality and creative boundaries; his brush moves across the canvas almost instinctively and always associatively.

POLISH CREATIVE SCENE

            “Each painting tells a long story,” – said the artist at the vernissage, which was opened by Mayor Dr Holger Habich. Katharina Ziemann, who has been regularly organising exhibitions of Polish artists in Zwingenberg since 1979, gave a brief introduction to Niksinski’s work.

            Contact with the Warsaw studio was established by the Wiesbaden-based painter Brigitte Dirting, who was also present on Sunday. She is co-founder of the artists’ group “Die Halle” and has good contacts with the Polish creative scene.

            Jan Niksinski is a painter who has been travelling around Europe with solo exhibitions for almost 30 years. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, he continued his artistic career in Warsaw and Vienna. Since 1978 he has been working as an independent artist. In his works he demonstrates the relativity of art in the sense of a non-objective continuation of reality, which he transforms into new painting compositions with a very personal rhythm.

            Many of his collage paintings consist of small wooden panels, rods and other small parts. These elements are used as contrasting or interrupting elements that are in direct dialogue with the geometric forms that often appear. The lines, circles and curves reflect the processuality and ‘wildness’ of the thoughts and the open result of their constant dynamics. “Recycling 2” is part of a planned series in which the painter makes visual connections with other artists, such as the expressionist colour field virtuoso Mark Rothko or his compatriot Artur Nacht-Samborski, through compositional quotations. Comparison and association are constant companions for the painter, who connects his works to the real world in a fascinatingly veiled and fractured way.

HOMOGENEOUS AND YET EPHEMERAL

            The outer and inner worlds appear homogeneous and yet ephemeral as the artist’s individual composition; Jan Niksinski is a constant questioner of the no less abstract relationship between seeing and understanding. The supposedly fixed contexts are relativised and offered to the viewer as a new, alternative perception. The exhibition concludes an artistically multifaceted exhibition year in Zwingenberg. Mayor Habich thanked all local stakeholders, above all the Arts and Culture Commission, for their continued commitment.