Jacek Wańkowski

ARTIST'S STATEMENT
PAINTING

My practice is inspired by my experiences as a Marine Biologist and builds on the abstract Modernist traditions in international art of the past 80 years.  Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, Lyrical Abstraction, Color Field Painting, Neo-expressionism and their contemporary expressions inspire my work – as do Miro, Kandinsky, Dubuffet, Frankenthaler, Newman, Still, Rothko, Keifer, Twombly  . . . . . . .
 
My art is subjective: abstracting and distorting reality to reflect a pattern, a fleeting emotion, a recognition, a long-forgotten image.  It attempts to capture abstract, aesthetic experience directly to the canvas.  Intuitive, gestural painting which aims to evoke a spontaneous and immediate visual expression – an illusion of depth and space, a flash of brightness.  The two-dimensional canvas provides the perfect surface for distortion, for forms-in-dissolution and an absence of perspective. 

The 'picture as object' in and of itself and not 'picture as representation'.

My work is of a freewheeling nature: the use of paint, texture and surface treatment; the path of the knife and brush stroke define different surfaces – ridged, smudged, bright, mottled, flowing, clear.  Applied thickly and in layers, my paint becomes one with the canvas fabric – a physical expression of the painting's surface.  Paint is applied then may be obliterated by scraping, washing; removed by wet cloth, sandpaper, knife.  Then reinstated and reapplied.

I accept the creative flow as it comes, creating a new layer, a new object in minutes.  Partly this is a consequence of using acrylic paints which are quick-drying, so enforcing an immediacy and urgency to the work.