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By Anne Swartz, Ph.D. Polish-American artist Elzbieta Sikorska recently visited the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she attended the opening reception of her exhibition "Elzbieta Sikorska: Drawing Landscapes," on display at Ex Libris through March 28, and lectured on her work March 5 at Alexander Hall. This exhibition of 21 large drawings of natural landscapes, hung loose on the wall, create an intimate space while making a dramatic impression on the viewer by showcasing the landscape's pulsating energy. Sikorska began working with the figure and now focuses on the image of the land, but it is a particular point of view; that is, she is showing the viewer places of refuge within the forest. Sikorska said, "The American landscape is so different from the European idea of landscape." She said that her experience here began as a struggle with the transition from Europe, but her awareness of the special qualities of the American landscape "happened gradually, as [she] began developing a feeling" for it. A trip to New Mexico cemented the unique features of the American landscape, which she regarded as "huge and mystical, without relating the space to the human figure, a big contrast to European landscape, which is all cultivated." Rather than focusing her attentions on the desert, she chooses the local forests near her Maryland home. Most of the images in this exhibition reveal Sikorska's penetrating gaze into small spaces and places within focused areas of the forest that are often uncultivated or overgrown. The idea of the forest has a long history as a place of refuge and escape in European and American literature and culture. Throughout history, the forest has been a place of abandon and uncertainty, from poet Dante as he begins his journey into the inferno until he finds his guide Virgil to child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim in his writing on the psychic role of forests in fairy tales. One of the large pieces in Sikorska's exhibition, "River" (2003), shows this space of the forest, obsessively rendered with extensively worked surfaces, usually in graphite. The sweeping space of this overall drawing belies the intimate places and spaces within the image. It reveals an avenue within a seemingly impenetrable forest, which recalls the world of the unconscious. When one enters the space of Sikorska's drawings with an open mind, one emerges with a higher sense of direction and purpose about nature and self. Sikorska's accomplishment in these drawings is substantial as it occurs at a time when drawing and the land as a subject have been often relegated to a less glamorous status compared to the possibilities offered by technological expressionism as an example. The artist begins with photographs in making these drawings, but then proceeds into the realm of imagination. Sikorska said she likes that "up close, the drawings are abstract and from a distance, the images come into focus," so as a viewer moves back, a tree can be discerned or a branch against the forest floor. Taken as a whole, the experience of this exhibition is remarkable as Sikorska has created a magical space in the gallery. Author's note: I am especially grateful to professors Stephen Gardner and Joel Varland for their helpful comments and questions during Sikorska's lecture, which prompted me to think about the obsessive elements of her work and the space of the forest in greater detail. Swartz is an art history professor. |
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