As demonstrated by the sculptures and paintings showcased in this section of the exhibition, Bożenna Biskupska’s way of resolving the opposition between abstraction and figuration is usually dialectical.
She does not use image to represent or create illusion but at the same time her painting cannot be described as abstract. The paintings are very concrete in their physical presence. Her treatment of the painterly matter: the substance and structure of paint, contrast between darkness and light, black and white, and the very structure of canvas woven of warps and wefts, is pure alchemy: through sublimation and repetition she turns it into a kind of authorial scripture. Line is the most basic sign in Bikupska’s painterly alphabet. She uses this simplest and most fundamental sign to organize the pictorial space by introducing movement, articulation, and rhythm, to record her performative gesture. Her paintings may be viewed as pages from the artist’s intimate diary, an existential chronicle preserving traces of her presence.
Like many projects realized by Biskupska in other media, her paintings are likewise created in open series developed over extended periods of time. Her goal in not completing the work but quite the contrary, continuing the creative process akin to meditative practices. The titles of the series from which come the objects featured at the exhibition: Demarcation of the Image, Drawing of Sculpture, or Cage, correspond to the titles of her sculpture and installation projects likewise extended over time. Biskupska explores diverse media and expressive means but individual works fit into the lifelong existential project of her art.