Marek Śnieciński

XY Anka Mierzejewska's Painting When encountering the paintings by Anka Mierzejewska, we should not trust our first impression. This first impression is, of course, important, after all it provides a gateway through which we enter the space created by her pieces, but in general we will have to verify it, redefine our relationship with her works. These paintings entice, draw us into their space, encourage us to decipher the stories they contain, offer exciting journeys through various semantic and emotional territories, and at the same time, at some point, we begin to realise that it is actually ourselves who are being checked by these works, that the temptations are our temptations, that fears, obsessions and narratives are brought out of ourselves. The artist's work has fascinated and disturbed its audience for several decades – the unique character of her painterly language revealed itself early on and resulted, firstly, from her highly uncompromising, authentic, often belligerent attitude (both towards art and towards the world), and secondly, from the artist's specifically loving, greedy approach to painting. The symbiosis of these factors makes her paintings (series of paintings), in which various media – from photography and film to drawing and printmaking – are present and painterly processed (reinterpreted), have

a distinctly individual, authorial character.

It is worth remarking that the painter rarely concentrates on a single painting. Both the subjects she undertakes and her favourite working method, which leads Mierzejewska to revolve around

a certain motif, a set of colours or around a specific state of mind for an extended period of time, mean that she most often creates series of paintings. They often have a clear beginning, but no end, or the end results from the fact that the artist has already chased after the next temptation, the next obsession. In this situation, the natural question arises: does a piece of work is constituted by a series, or rather do individual paintings constitute separate pieces? There seems to be no clear-cut answer to this point – both solutions come into play and it is actually us, the recipients, who have to make the decision each time by ourselves.

This serial method of working causes the artist's works, her series of works, to have something essayistic about them – Mierzejewska does not begin her work when she already knows something, has understood something and wants to communicate to us one truth or another. Rather, in her case, we have a situation where she starts painting when something bothers her, when she discovers

a certain problem that does not give her peace of mind. This is when she tries to formulate

a series of painterly questions and a series of paintings show the process of grappling with them, revealing her emotional and intellectual wanderings amidst preocuppying issues. These visual, artistic essays demonstrate also her digressive working style. Essays generally have a digressive narrative character inherent in them, so it is not surprising that in the artist's work we see how from certain series, themes, questions and obsessions(if only concerning a colour, a body fragment or a linguistic phrase), further threads emerge. The catalysts triggering the next digression can be human gestures, certain slogans, disturbing colours or words. Photographic images or, more broadly, photo-media images, which play a key role in shaping the contemporary collective imagination, also play an extremely important role here. For the painter, they can be visual notes, collections of motifs and compositional schemes, and are therefore used by her instrumentally, but these photo-media images are also something more, treated as legitimate entities, for they become a way of looking at the world. The artist is aware that they codify today the mechanisms that govern people's view of reality, that they decree what is worthy of becoming a painting and how this painting should be composed.

(…)

Mierzejewska's fascination with the body has something deeply disturbing in itself, like all fascination, some mysterious, dark realm. It is a very primordial, source dimension inherent in the Latin term fascinatio. Pascal Quignard writes: "Fascination mows down the speech like the Grim Reaper mows down the life. Fascination is the blind spot of language. Fascinated gazes are always cast from behind." In Mierzejewska's paintings, it is not only about the etymological and cultural contexts hidden in the word fascination and explored so interestingly by Quignard, but also about the fact that human beauty, beauty and gracefulness seem to be something dangerous and unobvious in them, they arouse distrust, make us stay vigilant and are sometimes threatening. The artist seems to be saying that beauty is a costume or a mask that needs to be removed in order to see what is hidden underneath, what is the essence of a person's bodily identity. It is completely different in the case of the animals (e.g. big predatory cats) that appear in the artist's paintings – their beauty can be menacing, the grace of their movements mesmerising, but there is nothing inappropriate or suspicious about it.

Anka Mierzejewska's painterly narratives do not have a linear structure; there are no classical solutions here in which a story must have a beginning, a development, some kind of climax and an ending. Rather, her series have a circular shape, a visual rondeau in which a motif and a colour or set of colours are played out. The viewer must abandon the safe perspective of the distanced observer ( an expert, a connoisseur or even an art lover) and become a participant, must respond to the challenge formulated by the works and, surrounded by the paintings, as it were, from inside them, must begin to ask questions, must start a conversation.

P. Quignard, Seks i trwoga, przekł. Krzysztof Rutkowski, Warszawa 2002, p. 6

Paweł Sosnowski

You want flowers? You have flowers!

Motto: She nodded towards Pollock and added:

And with something like this, you could at most illustrate

an advertisement for hangover pills

or seasickness.

Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast

of Champions

() Anka Mierzejewska's attitude perfectly fits into the outlined framework. Like most artists, she struggles to fit into the art world. Her confessions are full of bitterness:

"I won't change the world, but I experience this denial - of my paintings, I'm kicked out, mocked, misunderstood, unwanted." But also rebellion: "what is most important, what is the essence of painting; whether it's about the image, or the signature, or gaining fame, or painting a good picture, or being fashionable, or being good, or investing, or enjoying beauty... we must break free from this loop of absurdity."

Acceptance is a natural need for every artist. Lack of acceptance, indifference, or mockery results in frustration and can lead to an artistic breakdown, a break with art. Kurt Vonnegut created the character of the discredited and rejected painter Rabo Karabekian. He suffered a total failure when it turned out that all the paintings he allegedly painted with everlasting paint completely melted after some time. Since then, he hasn't created a single work. Anka Mierzejewska's latest cycle is precisely about disappearing paintings: "100%" - the paintings are painted with paint that will disappear - so they will not be a golden investment but an investment in oneself - just like going on vacation is an investment in oneself - experiences stay with us forever - so the painting is a fleeting value, - which is only available here and now, 100%. Karabekian keeps his greatest work in a shed closed on all four sides. The Sateen Dura Lux paint has completely fallen off. Only he knows the secret - he knows that the work no longer exists. He guards it so that people don't mock him completely. He is helpless in the face of the unexpected process of self-destruction. He cannot make use of it

Vonnegut demands his character to be a bitter frustrated (let's add, very wealthy frustrated). Anki Mierzejewska cannot afford frustration or bitterness. However, she can afford a sharp statement towards the artistic establishment. One of her important paintings is simple yet provocative. On the back of the canvas stretched on a stretcher frame, there is a message written in red spray paint: "Don't send us your artwork." It doesn't matter what's on the other side, what has been painted, what the image is. What matters is the powerless gesture towards the unwanted work by the gallery. This reflects the artist's confession: "The fact that I painted this picture - that's my experience - repeated a hundred times - only speaks badly of the addressees of the question - however, it will never discourage me and I hope other artists - from further creation." This optimism is positive. It turns out that one can build on failure. This is also a theme. Anka Mierzejewska listens to her audience, often her works are a repetition of their statements: "Paint on butts!" or a statement: "You want flowers - you have flowers - there are no taboo subjects = Let's take every subject to the workshop - I like difficult challenges - such a worn-out subject - so burdened - so associated with something unfashionable - to do it in a different style - that excites me. I'm an artist - experimentation is inherent in my profession - I seek - and I will always seek - new materials, new means."

It's not frustration that speaks through her work, but a deep awareness of the situation to which the artist does not surrender. Her messy compositions, painted with quick gestures, complemented by spray-painted text, are a challenge thrown to the audience. Will they be offended? Let them be offended. For art, indifference is the worst.

Dr. Michael Grus

Ausstellung »Figures in

the Street« (Birgid

Helmy, Figuren –

Anka Mierzejewksa, Malerei)

(Galerie Pokusa

– Vernissage 05.06. 2009)

Um Ankas Arbeiten zu verstehen, kommt man jedenfalls mit altbekannten

Sprüchen nicht weiter: „Unter dem Pflaster liegt der Strand“ hieß das früher einmal in einer beinah idyllisch klingenden Losung der sog. Toskana-Fraktion. Ein programmatischer Text der Künstlerin hat mit dieser, bekanntlich auch überwiegend männlich dominierten Generation nicht viel mehr als die Farbe des Lieblingsgetränks gemeinsam. In diesem Text »Über Bilder« (übers. aus Poln.) schreibt Anka Mierzejewska: „Das Bild ist ein Inhalt, Fleisch und Blut. Für mich ist ein Bild oder eine Fotografie ein Krieg der Farben, Striche, Fakturen und Flecken (…) ich male den Kampf um meine Malerei“ (…)

Leicht zugänglich ist das nicht unbedingt, sollen diese starken Bilder auch nicht sein: Den Betrachtern gegenüber, besonders den potentiellen Sammlern und Käufern, ist das Bild wie eine An-„Spannung“, die gezwungen wird, „die Nägel zu kürzen“, es soll aufpoliert und geglättet werden. „Der Betrachter will mein Blut haben“, schreibt sie weiter, „aber das Blut darf seinen Teppich nicht beflecken und seinen Salon nicht schmutzig machen. Er will meine aufgeschlitzten Gedärme. Sie sollen aber schön riechen.“

Die Figuren erscheinen wild, vielleicht schrill; nur schemenhaft verschwindend, wenn eine Großstadtarchitektur, wohl eine Straßenschlucht, angedeutet wird, sonst aber mit starken, kräftigen Konturen, was auf einen ganz ordentlichen Willen zur Selbstbehauptung deutet.

(…)

Inmitten des Großstadtgetriebes, das man – wie auf den Bildern von Anka Mierzejewska – eigentlich nicht sieht, sich aber denken kann, tragen diese Figuren ihre Würde, ihren Ernst für sich. Man kann in ihnen Typen sehen, aber nach meinem Eindruck nach sind es tatsächlich Individualistinnen, die in sich ruhen.

EN:

Dr. Michael Grus

Exhibition "Figures in the Street" (Birgid Helmy, Figures – Anka Mierzejewska, Painting)(Galerie Pokusa – Vernissage 06/05/2009)

To understand Anka's work, familiar slogans won’t get you very far. Once, there was a nearly idyllic-sounding motto from the so-called Tuscany faction: "Beneath the pavement lies the beach." However, the artist's programmatic text has little in common with that generation—one that was, as we know, predominantly male—except perhaps for the color of their favorite drink.

In her text "About Paintings" (translated from Polish), Anka Mierzejewska writes: " A painting is content, flesh, and blood. For me, a painting or a photograph is a war of colors, strokes, textures, and stains (…) I paint the battle for my art" (…).

This is not necessarily easy to access—nor is it meant to be. For viewers, especially potential collectors and buyers, a painting can feel like a kind of "tension" that is forced to "trim its nails," to be polished and smoothed. " The viewer wants my blood," she continues, "but the blood must not stain their carpet or dirty their living room. They want my slit-open guts. But they must smell nice."

The figures appear wild, maybe even shrill—only vaguely fading when an urban setting, likely a narrow street, is hinted at. Otherwise, they stand with bold, strong outlines, signaling a definite desire for self-assertion.

(…)

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the big city—something that, as in Anka Mierzejewska's paintings, is not actually visible but can be imagined—these figures carry their dignity and gravity within themselves. One might see them as archetypes, but in my view, they are, in fact, individuals—self-contained and at peace within themsel

Maria Niemyjska 

Defiant Art of XY Anka Mierzejewska

"Today, the task of art is to introduce chaos into order." (Th.W. Adorno: Minima Moralia, trans. M. Łukasiewicz. Krakow 1999, p. 266.)

XY Anka Mierzejewska practices the art of painting. By signing her paintings as "XY," she withdraws as the author, aiming to replace the artist's dictate with the interpretation of the viewer. However, it cannot be said that Mierzejewska practices "universal" art devoid of individual character. The threads she explores are saturated with personal experiences. In her paintings, she often narrates the search for a place for her work within exhibition and market structures, revealing bitter truths about them.

A fascinating theme developed in Anka Mierzejewska's work over the past few years is the analysis of the relationship between the artist and the buyer/collector of paintings. Several painting cycles have been dedicated to this topic. "NO BECAUSE NO" is a cycle consisting of about thirty canvases, each inspired by statements from potential buyers of the artist's works. Mierzejewska created a catalog of commonplace concerns (e.g., "Will it match the wallpaper?", "Beware, dark painting"), biased beliefs (e.g., "Is this supposed to be art?", "Not me, I am pretty"), and expectations (e.g., "Paint something nice," "Paint my Fafik") expressed towards the artist and her art. In the same realm of considerations is the cycle "God Dog," featuring portraits of dogs but... facing backward. This move ensures that the paintings remain just paintings, not allowing themselves to be reduced to a representational function. The works provide a defiant response to requests for portraits of pets.

In two recent cycles, XY Mierzejewska, by imitating in paintings what external commentators discuss regarding the spatial and semantic context in which works of art function, delves into the discussion. In the cycle "Hangers," the "action" of the painting in the domestic space was scrutinized. The artist calls things hanging on the walls or ceiling, such as chandeliers, sconces, antlers, weapons, etc., "hangers." Embedding the painting under what is "desired, accepted without discussion, what must hang one way or another" here presents a recipe for painting to achieve a position as important as those mentioned objects. But then the painting is condemned to be part of the decor, becoming an object like any other. In the cycle "Aureoles," the artist focuses on institutional conditions of art. Each canvas features headphones, and the paintings, arranged in a row, imitate the appearance of a gallery during video art exhibitions. By shifting attention from the artwork to the context, the artist points out a possible reason for the demand for new media art. Perhaps, in video art, the most attractive aspect is the aesthetics of spaces with white walls, against which rows of black LCD screens and headphones stand out? If so, showcasing video art primarily creates the image of a gallery as an institution "in tune," just as the white cube once represented a kind of "quality guarantee."

XY Anka Mierzejewska, by her own "non-domestication" institutional and market-wise, demonstrates that the pluralism of exhibition institutions is too small, and narrow exhibition profiles easily exclude certain creative models. Interest in the conditions of art and functioning within dependency systems marks and inspires her creativity. On the other hand, the artist shows a desire to engage in pure, unconditioned art. This binary stance is also reflected in the applied technique. The aesthetics of the image, somewhat old-fashioned, holds significance for the artist, but at the same time, an internal resistance against the appropriation of the "good image" by bourgeois tastes makes negligence, non-aestheticism, and ugliness an inherent characteristic of this painting.

Manfred Bator

DIRECT PAINTING by XY ankamierzejewska has a seductive power: the exhibition is, at the same time, beautiful in its pictorial quality and terrifyingly poignant in its ideological message, which makes it a feast for all enthusiasts of art: these receivers who have not yet lost their aspirations of being part of the world of artistic reflection.

(...) 

Most images are rendered in a very modest colour range, which is at the same time very courageous and well-chosen in their combinations. The figures are painted with decided, very expressive brush strokes, sometimes reduced to a sharp contour, in other works resounding with colours modelling their shape. In the exhibition, we also find several grayscale-based works, mainly portrait-type representations which seem to express, through the emotions shown in them, concern and fear, but also helplessness and despair. All these paintings, although based on very expressive artistic means and the painter's gesture, seem to have been precisely arranged beforehand (sometimes downright designed), to make every detail sound correctly in relation to the other and create a harmonious blend in the presentation. Deep reflection and original vitality suggest an association with an improvisation by a virtuoso of stage art; perhaps we should take the risk and say that what happens in XY's canvases is the alliance, so rare today, of Dionysian and Apollonian spirit. Therefore, the style presented by the Painter belongs to broadly understood expressionism, yet its force lies in stylistic autonomy, making it difficult to correlate it unambiguously with other achievements of classic and new expression. What may certainly be a helpful (this is not to say: decisive) clue in comparative interpretation is the cycle created by the Artist a few years ago and entitled My Men, in which XY portrays many of her masters, presided by Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh; among the Polish artists, we can find an outstanding new expressionist, Ryszard Grzyb, whose imaging poetics is perhaps closest to hers.

Marta Wróbel

XY ankamierzejewska's Painting Expansion

It would be hard to find in Wroclaw a person who deals with art and does not know the work of XY ankamierzejewska, painter and performer, an extraordinarily prolific artist who, for years already, has been creating her projects, often intriguing and provocative. Her actions constitute a specific form of author's visual comment, almost always critically refer to issues linked with contemporary artistic practice, as well as with the art market and the mechanisms reigning in it. XY ankamierzejewska, contrary to the prevailing fashion, is faithful to painting, which - even if enriched with performative actions from time to time - constitutes the main area of her activity.

The Wroclaw painter is a well-known and respected artist. This may also be because the attitude she has been presenting many years is uncompromising and authentic, which is noticeable both in her paintings and in direct contact. We are not going to find here neither a coherent narrative nor a single-track artistic programme; instead, we receive works stylistically related, constituting an expression of what was its author's fascination at the time. XY's work is not uniform in the technical context either: the painter uses various media - acrylic, spray, tape - inspired, to a large extent, by urban space, street culture and the set of symbols associated with it. Therefore, what links and blends the paintings presented by her are: rebellious and, in a way, critical attitude, openness to formal experiment, lively, contrasting, sometimes even fluorescent colour, expressive aesthetics and directness of painting gesture.

(...)

XY ankamierzejewska says about herself she is a child sloshing about in paints, a creator trusting her own intuition, an artist unafraid of experiments. Fascination with the unknown and unavailable often leads her to innovative and interesting formal solutions, aimed, in consequence, at purely artistic development, which constantly provokes the artist to fathom new, still unexplored areas. As she says: I am not worried about blind alleys. What matters most is to jump into the most bizarre paint buckets. What gives me most fun is breaking the existing status quo, provoking people, forcing them to change their way of thinking, proposing new solutions. What is important they need to be mine. And so it is: XY constantly provokes us and makes us think. She deliberately creates new, aggressive cycles, as if distracting our attention form works formerly created, just to return to abandoned questions after a while and and surprise us with them again.

It also needs to be mentioned that the work of the Wroclaw painter is not easy to classify: on the one hand, she moves in the territory of pop art; on the other hand, in the space of garish, underground off. She reaches for street art, art of the city, mass culture and symbolism of the everyday. She creates a private set of iconography and dresses it in her specific type of visual expression. Dynamism, deformation, thick contour, synthetism, deconstruction, and elements of assemblage prevail in it. Colour is important as well: as gaudy as the shapes of pictured compositional elements. Dynamism is intensified through the use of heaped diagonals, play with the frame, background and foreground, and through free approach to pictorial composition. The drawing, linear to a large extent, is executed on a completely flat background, most frequently obtained as a result of experiments with various supports. This is therefore a struggling kind of painting. Not directly perhaps, but in a manner strong enough to make the recipient feel this involvement.(...)

Marveling at the exuberance of art

By Elie Aliman

Within a few short paragraphs, it is not an easy task to do an in depth review this work merits.

At first glance, the painting of Anka Mierzejewska arrives with an ecstatic embrace as vivid colors converge, contrast, and carry us into a realm of orderly chaos.

It’s hard to escape the energetic power of these paintings - flaunting the struggles of the psyche, unraveling a collective need of expression. It is not a clash but a confident, abundant, and passionate flow, a painting process of intuitive expression. Free from conventional description, it glimmers with unexpected revelations.

In this series of work, Anka reflects on art and life, and across a selection of different media displays her unique ability to tune in and fully immerse herself in the manifestations of a depthless psyche.

In this grouping of paintings, Anka’s vision is an optimistic one, conveying the free flow dynamics of a range of psychic output. Emphasizing the similarity between visual and literary art, her brisk lines are minimal laconic strokes, interlacing like a haiku’s short poem form. They are an endless narrative that enraptures the viewer with an abandonment that permeates the senses.

Here in this series of paintings are a polysemy of visible manifestations of the masculine forces, the animus,(1) the Yang, channeled through a festive mind’s eye of the feminine anima, the Ying; the rugged strokes take jovial lyrical forms that call to mind the themes of ‘eternal recurrence’ hinted at in Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being or the ‘strange lightness of being" in Tolstoy. These visuals blend Eastern and Western incorporeality, in the flow of the brush and the palette’s colors.

To illustrate in musical terms, each canvas in its theme has the dynamics of a staccato, and yet, the whole series combined presents a legato connectivity.

Unlike other contemporary artists, who are either overly cerebral or gimmicky, Anka’s work has an unfettered openness that muses on the perpetual struggle life's demands make. This invites a myriad of interpretations, a stream of consciousness that has many apparitions, signifying revelation to any who might be open to discern.

Anka has an artist’s tacit awareness of the unseen. She lets the viewer in with an intimate glance in the direction of the unfoldment of the unknown, thus allowing the viewer to unfold their own unknowns. The supraconscious mind is a fascinating territory.

This art does not require interpretation, but should be felt spontaneously and instinctively.

(1) https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2020/03/06/carl-jung-and-the-anima-and-animus/ -

Carl-Jung-And-The-Anima-And-Animus

Ewa Hartmann

Kuratorin 

Diese Ausstellung unterscheidet sich stark von den bisherigen Zyklen der Malerin. Die Künstlerin zeigt normalerweise einen aktuellen, hermetisch geschlossenen Zyklus, in dem sie sich verschiedenen konzeptuellen Aufgaben stellt, die auf der Leinwand gelöst werden.

Die Bilder, die in Wiesbaden gezeigt werden, wurden für die Räumlichkeiten der Galerie Pokusa unter dem Motto des „Triumphs der Malerei“ bzw. des Spiels mit der Malerei ausgesucht. In der heutigen Zeit werden immer öfter in Kunstgalerien, während der Biennalen und Kunstmessen vorwiegend Installationen oder Videokunst präsentiert. Malerei wird als etwas „Traditionelles“ betrachtet, als Gegenteil zur „modernen“ Kunst, die mit verschiedenen technischen Erfindungen jongliert. Und plötzlich stellt man fest, dass die Malerei so viel zu bieten hat! Sie kann erfrischend sein, spontan und witzig, einfach echt!

Anka Mierzejewskas neue Bilder werden fett gemalt, mit vibrierenden Farben, starken Linien und mit viel Schwung kompromisslos malerisch umgesetzt. Wir zeigen Ihnen starke, sehr unterschiedliche Bilder der jungen dynamischen Breslauer Malerin, die an vielen polnischen Kunstorten für (malerischen) Wirbel sorgt.

Brandt Junceau

sculptor and writer

Anka’s work shares virtues of her person. It is uniformly serious, constructive, earnestly

concerned both with the human condition, and the nature and worth of the individual.

And it happens to be visually splendid. (…)

Her work takes no aspect of the human condition for granted. As personal and as directly concerned with the physical contingency and the interior life of the individual, it takes place in a broader social scene, where individuals collide one to one and find inevitable friction with society. (…)

I find her balance of introspection and social engagement admirable and all the more valuable for bringing a European perspective to issues that are handled differently, and quite frankly, with less attention to real freedom of thought and visual action here. We American artist and citizens alike need more of that un-cliched, un-partisan cross- fertilisation. Cultural exchange with artists like Anka helps us out of our “box.” Anka is an absolutely precious addition to the dialog on this side of the Atlantic.

© 2024 XY ANKA MIERZEJEWSKA