2001
Sculpture/Photography
A series of 7 groups of stone sculptures,
21 photographs, digital print, 150 x 50 cm
Glimpsing Gray
Why darkness?
Why light?
Why full?
Why empty?
Grey?
Empty?
Janina J. Sarzyńska
Text accompanying the exhibition at the Municipal Cultural Center Gallery
Zgorzelec, Poland, 2002
Glimpsing Gray
In my work, in my art, ask questions and search for answers. I build dialogue. When I experience “I know,” I realize it was only an intermediate stage toward asking further questions. The end becomes the beginning of something new. At that moment, I find myself in the world of geometry, within its space, which for me is not only concrete but also alive. Its empty space has its own sound. Light appears. White and black create tension; they are often unambiguous. The gray that accompanies them conceals these relationships and dependencies. It also conceals itself.
It is seemingly gray; it is a mystery.
Janina J. Sarzyńska
Prague, November 8, 2004
The text accompanied the exhibition Emergence and Disappearance, Gallery U Prstenu, Prague, 2004. Publication: Prague Courier, No. IV, 2004, p. 5, Beginning and End.
Reviews
Glimpsing Gray, Janina Sarzyńska
Exhibition –Vznik a zanik (Emergence and Disappearance), review excerpt
Gallery U Prstenu , Prague, Czech Republic, 2004
If we begin to read these photographic records of cuts in stone, records that take on the character of a diary, they begin to speak to us in a powerful, deeply subjective voice. The detailed topography of the cuts contains symbols of a highly specific environment, one marked by a distinctive atmosphere; it hides enigmatic information about the mutual, shifting relationships between two beings. The viewer is carried by the melodic fluidity of lines moving toward a mathematical point – one difficult for the human mind to grasp, toward infinity itself. […] Janina Sarzyńska is an observer of life, and what more than a witness to life can a creator be?
Milena Klasova, PhDr
Prague, Czech Republic, November 2004
Tłumaczenie z czeskiego: Włodzimierz Białczyk
Glimpsing Gray, Janina Sarzyńska
Dialogue – As Long as I Feel, Understand, See…
National Photography Competition
11th Day of Judaism and 8th Day of Islam Celebrations, Poznań, Poland, January 2008
A distinct group of works submitted to the competition consists of those that examine the question of imagining dialogue on a higher level of abstraction. […] In a similar spirit are works that refer to ancient signs or at least allude to them.
Janina Sarzyńska’s series bears the marks of a far-reaching universalization. The signs presented may be associated with runic symbols (perhaps not only?). They evoke the enigma of writing. The dominance of the signifiant over the signifié. Yet this is by no means an attempt to draw attention to the endless weeding of the signifier. On the contrary, these works reveal a pronounced desire to decipher a hidden meaning. Perhaps it is merely a matter of uncovering it; it is also possible, however, that what is anticipated is a revelation.
Prof. Dr. hab. Ryszard K. Przybylski
Publication: Dialogue in the Realm of Imagination