Andrzej Gieraga (1934), QUADRATS C, 2014.

acrylic/board, 95 x 95 cm
signed, dated and described on the back: ANDRZEJ GIERAGA | C QUADRATES | 95 x 95 cm | PLATE | acrylic | 2014

EXHIBITED:
- Andrzej Gieraga. Progressions. Paintings and prints from 1972-2016, April 2 - June 12, 2016, Museum of the City of Lodz, Lodz 2016.

In 1971, he graduated with honors from the Faculty of Textiles of the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Lodz in the Painting Studio of Professor Roman Modzelewski. After that, he was associated with the Lodz school as a teacher. In 1976-1980 he participated in the International Meetings of Artists, Scientists and Art Theorists in Osieki. Since 1986, a participant in the International Plein-Air for Artists Using the Language of Geometry, organized by Bożena Kowalska. Initially, he created expressive paintings - relief forms, irregular, evoking associations with the organic world. In them he used the contrast of black and white. With time, he introduced geometry into his works. In the second half of the 1980s, gray began to dominate in Gieraga's works and the surface of the paintings gained texture in the form of engraved lines. In the late 1980s, the painter introduced color. At the beginning of the 21st century, in the reliefs titled "Progressions," he experimented with the saturation of color, achieving the effect of optical illusion by thickening the grooves.

The presented painting shows a return to ascetic gray and the abandonment of authentic relief in favor of black line drawing. The artist plays a subtle game with the viewer's visual perception, matching the shape of the sub-image to the edges of the two, "superimposed" forms. With the eye distinguishing the squares partly on the basis of the curved edges of the whole, partly due to the line painted inside the composition.