wooden cross-bracing, screws and angles seem to open a view behind the scenes of the painting, onto the reverse of the canvas. But her use of colour also ventures into new terrain. Strong chromatic palettes accentuate the abstract pictorial spaces and construct or camouflage boundaries. Hatching, dynamic brush marks and other indications of manual processing testify to the close relationship between the materials and the artist’s hand. They combine, as an almost organic component, in a dialogue with the initial basic forms, which are always geometrical.
Bringing what is customarily hidden into the foreground, or even concealing a further protagonist with a supposed display side, recalls a recurring fascination in art history. The most famous example is probably Cornelis Gijsbrechts’ trompe-l’oeil of the reverse of a framed painting, which draws the eye to the supposed stretcher and the raw canvas from the rear.
Natalia Załuska also presents an assumed reverse in a number of works, and, in some, even an actual all-round view. Transferring customarily concealed elements such as wooden slats and, as a result, clearly outlined recesses, is a means of shifting the three-dimensionality within its own limitations of the stretcher frame. Or – as is the case with the suspended, double-sided paintings we can walk around – to expand into space, revealing two subtly interrelated readings of the composition.
However, the hidden plays an essential and recurring part in Natalia Załuska’s practice on another level as well: the influence of things and found objects from her environment – or rather, the memory of certain places and times they contain, also flows into her artistic work. The artist incorporates some of these objects directly into her paintings; others are juxtaposed with the newly created works in the exhibition. In her studio, there is already a connection between the works and “objets trouvés” such as an old stool (from Krakow), her grandmother’s clock, or the metal skeleton of what was perhaps piece of furniture (from Mariahilferstraße in Vienna). But old photos from childhood days also serve as a source of inspiration, their contents translated into the works as an abstracted, geometric arrangement of patterns and shapes.
In ‘Forms of Alteration, Analogue Objects’ Natalia Załuska presents a new chapter of her œuvre, not only revealing ever fresh details in her works but also providing insights into her creative process and sources of inspiration.
