I use ink on paper to create richly textured large monochromatic drawings. Clusters of lines, dots and patterns create forms that one starts recognizing as trees, houses, hills, rivers, clouds, sky and the horizon. Familiar sights emerge and disappear as the viewer drifts in and out between appreciating the drawing as a particular image and also a collection of purely formal elements. This approach stems from my interest in how ideas are shaped and the pictorial brevity needed to translate the real sights into an experience of the mind.
My drawings explore landscapes and cityscapes. I’m not attracted to grand narratives. I am not seduced by spectacle. I need a subject matter to root the work in a reality. I'm interested in how the "reality" of the artwork is constructed. My work is not abstract, but it’s not literal either. Using trivial motifs to simplify the search, I look for textures that best represent reality of overcast sky, moving water, clouds of differing shapes and sizes, sun reflected in water or diffused by cloudy day - to study how they pictorially hold together. I seek to visually simplify nature to intensify it - to explore how fewest possible marks can say the most.
Working in series, I let each body of work evolve over 20 to 30 pieces, allowing patterns and ideas to emerge so that seen in the context of others, they create a bigger whole. Ideas clarify when drawings are seen next to others.
I work with ink on paper for its immediacy. After a long hiatus from art, I returned needing a process that allows for fewer excuses and more direct engagement. Each drawing begins with a photo. Each piece isn't simply an interpretation of the source material but rather is a journey to solve a visual problem. I imagine what sort of pictorial solutions I could find. I give in to the joy of making marks - dancing with a pen on a sheet of paper - letting each pen stroke carry time through the weight of gesture. The final piece always diverges from the original intention. What stays behind is the energy of rhythmic marks - breathing lines and forms, that through texture look to uncover the permanent beneath the ever changeable nature.
I'm influenced by artists like John Marin, Milton Avery, and Picasso—those who reimagined form without abandoning the world altogether. My goal is to reveal reality's layered complexity through line, tone, texture, rhythm and shape.
I'm sensual rather than emotional. The senses play a huge role in my creation. I fight to stop thinking and let the sensual part of me to take over. I struggle between intention and what the drawing wants to become.
-- Patryk Rebisz |