Agnieszka Uznańska is a young artist making her debut at the Art Brut Gallery in Lublin with her drawing exhibition entitled “Comic Book–0”.
This may be the first time that her works are publicly displayed, but the artist’s interest in linearity and chiaroscuro effects date back to a very early age.
The presented works are a form of a personal diary, notes made on loose, blank notebook pages. She uses her drawing pad to document her everyday life, make observations about the world and her loved ones. She often depicts figures sitting in a comfortable-looking armchairs or sleeping in beds, animals, portraits, and still life images. However, she also does not shy away from the fantastic, grotesque and deformed imagery that is marked by symbolism, ellipsis and metaphor.
Agnieszka Uznańska’s drawings are made in the technique of linear sketches, often with a fine felt-tip pen. They are characterised by a simplicity of form and straightforwardness of thought dominated by fluid geometry. There is always a suggestion of incompleteness, most of her works utilise an open composition. At times, a careful viewer will come across a small detail which serves the purpose of introducing him to a brief, if somewhat surreal, story from the artist’s life. Another large portion of her works are skilfully sketched on small-sized sheets of white paper. These are considerably more mature. The drawings are dominated by non-simplified chiaroscuro, beautifully framing the silhouette of a figure reclining in a chair, and armchair or sleeping in soft bedding. The same can be said about her portraits where subjects are depicted in a “three-fourths” frame with skilfully included light highlights, characteristic facial features, and proportions that although not necessarily natural, nonetheless evidence a considerable mastery of drawing techniques. Still life images, most often depicting a bottle, reveal astoundingly realistic proportions and exceptional skill in using the softer tools.
Overall, her works are highly varied in all aspects.
Certain technical inconsistencies may be attributed to the artist’s emotional involvement or her continuing artistic development related to varying intensity of her notebook sketch work.
One of the unique and certainly noteworthy features of her works is the fact that she tends to include short, descriptive comments in her drawings – sometimes funny, sometimes deeply personal, sometimes seemingly drawn form a child’s fairy-tale, and sometimes quoted from popular proverbs or adages, e.g.: “Africa appeared suddenly before his eyes and instead of a cactus, a large wild-rose question mark appeared on his head”, “Be kind and polite to others and you will feel at home wherever you are”, “The jug can never be filled”, or the very telling paraphrase of the Cartesian cogito ergo sum “I think, therefore I am alone”.
Agnieszka Uznańska is a very interesting, some would say up-and-coming artist. The sketched pages from her diary say a lot, both about her art and the author herself. She certainly possesses considerable artistic talents and drawing, be it of people or still life, is undoubtedly a perfect way to further develop her technical prowess. The sheer number of works presented by Agnieszka Uznańska seems to suggest that the diary is indeed an open and somewhat enigmatic form wherein new pages and ideas are likely to appear on an almost daily basis.
We cannot say why she chose to entitle her diary the way she did. A comic book. Does it reflect the way she generally perceives her life? Or maybe the themes and forms somehow associate in the artist’s mind with the straightforward and somewhat simplified form of a cartoon? Maybe it stems from her desire to seem more approachable…
Whatever the case, one thing is certain. Agnieszka Uznańska’s works leave us wanting for more and keen to become more acquainted with both the artist herself and her interesting, unique creations.
Drawning I
Agnieszka Uznańska is a young graphic artist whose drawings are a form of journalistic documentation of her everyday experiences and thoughts. She draws in pencil, almost exclusively on notebook-size sheets of paper. She uses blank or graph paper sheets. What matters most to the artist is the form and subject matter of her work. Her drawings touch upon abstract as well as realistic themes and are often accompanied by comments added by the artist. This particular drawing depicts a pig and is intended to be satirical. The animal is posed to mimic a human being dressed in trousers, a jacket, and a bow tie. Only the head remains distinctly animalistic, reminding us what we are looking at. The pig is wearing glasses and holding both its hands/hooves up, as if gesticulating towards the viewers and trying to tell them something. The inscription below reads “It’s a pig, let it be a professor”. Uznańska’s drawing is a quick sketch, akin to a note in a journal. The author does not sign her works.
Drawning II
Agnieszka Uznańska is a graphic artist who uses the loose pages from her journal/sketchbook to document her thoughts and everyday experiences. She draws on loose blank or graph paper notebook pages. The work by Agnieszka Uznańska is not titled. It is one of several hundred hastily sketched images. The drawing is abstract, the presented forms are not readily associated with any specific natural forms, but rather are figments of the artist’s vivid imagination. The work is sketched in pencil. The depicted forms are soft, geometrical, one somewhat reminiscent of an eye, another possibly a human face, a star, the Moon, but the elements require a healthy dose of interpretative imagination to be defined. The author does not sign her works.
