Reality has many faces (1986)

Review of my exhibition at the Varissela Gallery in the Nürnberger Zeitung 31.01.1986

REALITY has many faces and an artist like Jan Niksinski (he) also finds new ones at Galerie Varisella: the vision of a landscape is abruptly interrupted by a sudden wedge that extends over the edge of the picture and, both sobered and astonished, one recognises one part of the landscape as spatially elevated, the other as flat. “Hurt Romanticism” and “And did I dream of a fish” are titles that say a lot about the experience of dreaming, of waking up and reawakening. The Polish draughtsman and graphic artist’s works wander between the poles of appearance and reality, between the extremes of realistic detailing and constructive abstract composition.

            Niksinski thus arrives at situations in which reality “unveils itself” – for example, when a fish profile dissolves into transparent surface rhythms and is then pierced by bundled branches or clamped, rolled, coiled and folded by rods. Niksinski is a playful “composer” of pictorial (parallel hatching, calligraphic lines, light – dark and colour) or technical means (pencil, pen, print collages, overpainting), who allows opposites to meet and seeks synthesis by spanning a “stylistic arc” (Galerie Varisella, BlumenthallStr. 7, until 15 February; also Triennale der Zeichnung, Norishalle),