- Venue
- Djanogly Art Gallery
- Location
- East Midlands
Marek’s paintings are based on a particular sort of line that derives from drawing both in concept and through attention to placement upon surface: painted lines which relate directly to a mode of thinking that is particular to drawing, of gesture then decision then gesture, both disjointed and continuous.
With their fixed width and deliberated routings, Marek’s carefully painted lines denote the use of a tool – in actuality a paintbrush. Yet they draw allusion to a physical sculpting from a machine-like tool which would produce such a uniform line. This quality is investigated in the hollowed negative line-networks in MDF and coloured acrylic shown along with the paintings. These demonstrate that Marek’s compositional layering is evident even when all the lines are uniform in width and substance, through a sense of purposeful directionality. In these relief works the lines become visible through their absence as carved passages through material stuff. Yet each line is able to be read as distinct over-layered pathways in tangible visual space.
Marek’s emphasis on drawing permeates the paintings, leaving traces of the decision-making process underlying each paintings’ construction. Serial circular arcs imitate and perfect a natural curve of an artists’ reach, with gestation periods between each decision point: like a time-line, accelerating and slowing. At times lines become dense: deliberated in twists and junctures. Restlessly fluctuating they give a feeling of lightness and air, a three-dimensional nest-space. Your eye dances with the changing directionality: parallel, divergent or convergent, implying perspective in silhouetted three-dimensional form. Your eye dances not just across the plane of the painting but also backwards and forwards in the three-dimensional area between you and the painting.
The nest-spaces are given form by their containment in the compositions. The whole wobbling ovoid network-objects are subject to a sense of compression from the heavy negative area around the outside. The large, weighted, outer areas allow the inner network-forms to floats loose. An after-image membrane seems to enclose the whole visual field, made further ambiguous through painterly layering and colour interactions across these thresholds.
In 2LC SymM Prussian Blue on Cobalt, Marek exploits the potential for our eyes to sense visual depth of space in colour resonance as well as in the linear wanderings of the painted forms. Within a very tight spectrum range, he combines contrasting hues to create sensory noise amid concurrent readings of solid/liquid/air. Blue makes a particular sort of space in the mind’s eye, and here Marek exploits the richness and suggestiveness of blue while keeping the pigments as pure as possible. Mineral cobalt lies anchored in a solid half-submerged layer beneath ragged glazings of night-sky inky prussian’s dense pigment suspended in its oily translucent medium-vehicle. Negative linen lines glow earthy-rich in peach-orange narrow wavering bands in complementary contrast to the heavy expanse of resonating blues. Undulating deep red arterial lines and buried seams of white bring the painting into vibrant and harmonious balance. Marek’s method flutters between the seductive qualities of each pigment, while heeding an instinct for balance that leads to a harmonious marriage between their variations in translucency, intensity and material plasticity.
Continuum in Symmetry is a painting show that fits very securely into the realm of painterly painting, and showcases Marek’s work as studio-based investigation into painting process: an artist’s artist. Yet there is a generosity evident that resists definition as pure painting in a Greenbergian sense: a playfulness in the repetition of an ambiguous network motif that signposts distinct colours and distinct layers into an open field of visually enjoyable painted surface. Even the thinnest most tenuous faint lines stretch across the full picture plane, and so play an equal role; in analogy Marek’s quiet paintings are indicative of a prevalent tendency towards honesty and beauty in painting now, away from showmanship, trickery and illusion.
