WITH DREAMPROPULSION IN ORBIT,
smoulder-
singed,
two masks instead of one,
planetdust in the caved
eyes,
nightblind, dayblind,
worldblind, /…/
– Paul Celan
Joanna Kamirska-Niezgoda paints silence. Silence in stillness. Silence in waiting. She paints dolls, puppets and masks. She escapes in safe regions in the areas of childhood. Lacking allusions to reality, the haunting reality of the modern world, the fantastic creation of doll-like and child-like utopia makes time and space indifferent. It is an attempt to reconstruct the dream world, the world of dreams coming true. Such attitude usually comes from the fear of life. The painter through the process of creation degrades in a way objects and situations causing anxiety; relieving the emotional tension, she kills in this way the existential fear that haunts her. At the basis of such approach, with creating invented, imaginary reality, with the process of masking, lies an attempt to put a spell, to handle all that in the world or in the subconscious appears as a demonic, destructive force, causing a threat. Paradoxically, the strangeness of a world constructed in such a way, releases unreal but favourable to men reality, immersed in dream, on the verge of enchantment. How easy it is now to perceive this world inadequately, as a carnival; a very attractive perspective – beginning in the late Middle Ages there exists a continuous, uninterrupted sequence of artists painting grotesque pageants and masquerades.
A mask, originally a festive element in archaic societies, signalled the metamorphosis of a festival’s participant, his being enchanted into a form of deity or a totemic animal. It enabled to pass from the everyday world to the world of festival. Actors of the ancient theatre and dell’arte comedy performed wearing masks. Because of the mask a mysterious conversion – both external and internal – takes place; wearing it; a person becomes somebody else. No matter whether a powerful demon or only a carefree playing spirit causes it. Well, the entire world plays a comedy, putting on masks constituting protective colouring, a protection that is to shield our insides from the eyes of strangers. A simple conclusion arises – there must exists that “something” we want to hide, and it must be important to us. A mask can be put on or passed on to others; you can learn how to manipulate masks as many of them can be found in the social circulation. As similar relations and addictions constantly reappear, it is possible to reiterate not only your own parts but also to make use of the reserve of masks left by the past.
Let us look at the line of puppets waiting for their turn in a show. Caught in stillness, they are in a stiff, mechanical pose, in ostentatiously artificial ceremony. Oppositional clowns – Harlequin, muscular, dressed in tight, gaudy outfit is aggressiveness, the foolishness of exaggeration; frail Pierrot in loose, white costume tempts with passivity, the sentiment of dream. Joanna Kamirska-Niezgoda places them in conventional, feigned space. Colour? No, it is not pure colour but, it might be said, purified, as conventional as the space that it constructs and fills. The painter usually uses for this two considerably whitened chromatic sets; on the one hand brown, on the other broken blue. Both sets radiate with dignity and moderation; the whole, thus, gives the impression of solemn, even slightly dramatic, and somewhat sombre seriousness. Dense atmosphere emanates from the canvas, though supposedly little happens here – a few figures, in addition ethereal and the background actually bare, although in fact filled, saturated with contrast. This sublime beauty of colour, thinly applied with bright greyness and the susceptible nobleness of form, particularly decorative, brings the mood of absolute alienation and loneliness. It is cold and dark strangeness, seeming to suggest being lost in the broad order of nature and idea.
– Jerzy Kamrowski