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Elzbieta Sikorska at Gomez - Baltimore - Brief Article
Art in America, March, 2002 by Joe Shannon
Entering the gallery where Elzbieta Sikorska's large, graphite and chalk landscape drawings were presented, some viewers might, at first glance, have taken the works for merely accurate renderings of the wintry forest--conservative, even ordinary. However, as we moved around the room, we were suddenly hammered--yes, hammered--with a body of work that is brave, daring and startlingly original. An icy sky is composed of hypothermic freezing blots and smears that miraculously depict it with dead-on accuracy. In Stick (2000), the title subject, a lightning bolt of pure white, erased clean, provides a surprising contrast to a big central tree trunk leaning in bleak death or seasonal sleep, drawn with elegant economy. All along the forest floor rattling scribbles abide above a big pattern of hellish black at the bottom.
The same mossy black passages are exploited in Ladder (1999). A fallen tree is rendered in mid-distance with razor-thin lines; a nearer tree has a ghostly solidity, erased and blurred. Squint at Shadow on Water (2000), and it becomes organic and alive. An uneasy ambiguity prevails--an exposed root looks like a reaching claw, the dense black of a large shadow emerges as a huge, nightmarish dragon. But at the same time, clearly we have a tree root and shadow on water. Sikorska's consummate skills ambush us constantly. From work to work, new feats of technique and rendering are dazzling. The dark beauty made staying an hour with the 11 pieces easy to do and an unforgettable experience. One can insist that these works possess such a rich and profound originality that they are nothing if not avant garde, despite their traditional means.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group
