75 x 90 Steel Plate, 5 x 5 cm oil on canvas miniatures
The Research Moment of the Image
My explorations in abstraction have allowed me to approach the very particles of the image and of color itself. The desire to investigate the relationships and conditions that give rise to a synergic whole directed my gaze toward the smallest constituent of perception. In this series, I observe the moment of emergence — the instant when interaction occurs — with silence, background, and void. The 5×5 cm format becomes the Research Moment of the image, which I liken to the conditions of sound perception: an isolated field that allows the resonance and full articulation of a single tone.
Moment badawczy obrazu
Punkty, miniatury 5×5 cm, olej na płótnie.
Doświadczenia z abstrakcją pozwoliły mi na zbliżenie się do cząstek obrazu i koloru. Chęć zbadania relacji i warunków zaistnienia synergii całości skierowało moje spojrzenie na najmniejszą składową percepcji. W przypadku tej serii obserwuję moment pojawiania się, zaistnienia faktu interakcji – z ciszą, tłem, pustką. 5×5 cm to Moment Badawczy obrazu, który porównuję do warunków percepcji dźwięku, tworząc obszar izolowany, dający wybrzmieć wartości pojedynczego tonu.
Paulina Sylwestrowicz The Reveries 2019 | 75×75 cm oil on canvas
The titular cycle „Reveries” comprises a selection of paintings that build upon concepts previously explored in the artist’s doctoral thesis, „Chaos Forms – Points of Reference”. The recent works from 2024 have achieved a stage of contemplative balance, characterized by the juxtaposition of complementary colors. This harmonious contrast is accentuated by the placement of luminous, isolated objects against a celestial backdrop.
The sky’s mesmerizing, pre-stormy, and dreamy atmosphere creates an otherworldly ambiance that invites introspective contemplation. The interplay between the vibrant objects and the melancholic background underscores the sense of dynamic equilibrium and mystery.
Under this sensual layer, the cycle conceals a certain concept: the author treats the work as „coordinates”. By creating images – she creates the signs, strengthening the basic elements of visual language through repetition, reiteration, and exposure. The condensation of a fragment is the material for the emergence of its autonomy, creating an additional dimension – a dimension of suspension, depth of perception and depth of knowledge.
Through her thoughtful and deliberate approach, the artist seeks to grasp the essence of human existence and experiential reality. Themes recurring throughout her oeuvre include: Points of Reference, The Areas of Oblivion, Chaotic Condensatie, and Transitional States of Mind. At the core of her creative process lies the philosophical concept of „I-Am-Now,” which emphasizes being a conscious observer in the world around us.
She points out that the described point, the true image, is indeed the moment of awareness, being consciously “here”, and the act of cognition. The work serves as coordinates. Consciousness, in its uncertainty, penetrates through unclear layers, projections, uncertain, momentary, fleeting. It lends presence to the absent – in silence.
The Reveries – solo exhibition showcasing the artistic journey of the artist, spanning over 18 years from 2006 to 2024. This presentation also marks the culmination of a mature artistic philosophy that has evolved through her creative process.
Nude Descending, Paulina Sylwestrowicz 2016 | welded and bent steel rope 160x150x30 cm
The Instinct of the Form
If there was a reality with no time dimension, all events would take place simultaneously in superposition of every possible event variation. Such layering is much like a chaos with no point of reference, no vector and no sense.
But our reality is a chaos postponed in time. Cascade of events reduces some possibilities but enables others to come to existence. The maze of cause and effect is impossible to predict and to navigate through this all we are forced to simplify life in much smaller and cleaner concepts.
In my realisations I try to freeze the moment of uncertainty, as if to emphasize the suggestion of quantum superposition. See the matter before the moment of it’s reduction to a concrete form. The drawing of a line is not only a means to indicate a shape but also a way to mark an essence of an object, showing it’s different dimensions of being, a hidden topography of complexity.
Paulina Sylwestrowicz 2018 | welded and bent steel rope, 24x30x14 cm
Personal Baggage is a small sculpture, a suitcase that symbolizes travelling and transiency, as well as an indication that the wholeness of emotional experience we accumulate throught our lives we carry around.
Sinusoid Man is an example of my philosophy „I-Am-Now”, which emphasizes being a conscious observer in the world around us.
The sculpture’s slow rotation and sinuous form seem to embody the discontinuity of consciousness, the constant flux of psychological states, and the ebb and flow of human experience. This refpection is framed by the surrounding image, which provides a visual anchor and establishes a sense of containment. Meanwhile, the canvas color palette evokes a sens of static infinity at dusk, almost twilight. This subtle synthesis of changeability and form prompts contemplation on the ever-changing nature of human consciousness in the present moment.
The Continuum is an extension of a detail of the series the Transitional States of Mind, where its detail has been further elaborated. It is in this work that I focus on expressing the depth of a physical parameter, usually perceived as present within a painting. In the Continuum, the plane of depth becomes an infinite fold of space (the work is a fragment of theoretically indefinite continuum of this form), which sometimes folds around itself, creating whirls and implantations, condensing the plane in an additional dimension – its internal dimension.
The infinity of the Continuum takes the form of a fold, which ‘exceeds its frames’ of belonging to its function or that which creates it, what is hidden under the fold of material, like its body, construction or structure. It symbolises the existence gaining its autonomy, slowly becoming ruled by laws different then in the case of being subjugated or ancillary to the structural form it takes. Deleuze in his baroque analysis of a fold, starts with a description of an element that is independent in aesthetic terms and also as regards its emotional impact. He suggests the necessity for the painting to leave its framework and become sculpture in order to make this effect fully evident.60 Such peculiar phenomenon may be observed in the work Non-Total Continuum, where the layered, flamboyant element – the fold – has left plane and ventured into three-dimensions. We are observing a fold, which is the basic element of baroque painting which emancipated, and which allows its matter to evolve along artistic continuum, then to pierce through, breaking into the third dimension, and to reach further the phase of façade61. The lateral development of a painting, as described by Deleuze, constitutes the process of surpassing subsequent frames. It is worth noting that after surpassing a single frame, it remains within the next one, retaining its nature as Representation, an illustration or trompe-l’oeil, being the proof of an absent object to be present?
This particular representation refers to the question of infinity and personality that comes into being the moment when the linear fold of a painting becomes embedded. Curved edges create a dependent shape and in the areas hidden inside the fold, the picture is not represented at all. Can we see the whole picture? What does representation refer to? Which element of the Continuum constitutes a representational illusion and which one – the reality? What is present?
The Continuum, despite the properties of a relief that it has, remains a plane or a flat surface of illusion and hallucination, the area suggesting the presence of a non-existent form. Simultaneous spatial representation is adjacent to a formal curve. Compression and organic fragmentation of the picture refers to the process of forgetting and inaccurate process of coding in one’s memory, binding it with the physical spatial aspect and the phenomenon of being adjacent. A painting is a kind of sign, a trace or a symbolic indication. It constitutes a visual phenomenon in a layered and opaque plane.
The relationship of visible and hidden picture is not symmetric, due to the inadequacies that appear, the derivatives of primary curve distortion. Any further layer of the fold, as well as its subsequent creases, are similar to the levels or steps leading slowly into the depths of cognition/chaos. Theoretically, the fold can infinitely unfold into the wider continuum of experience and a never-ending variation of its interpretation or an infinite number of points of reference.
