Niedziela 2019

Lech Jankowski made this small drawing, Niedziela, using pencil on paper. The horizontal hatching across the paper is like a ground, a foundation, but also maybe the furrows of a field. The lone figure in the drawing is pale and shimmering. Is it a ghost, a memory, or something real? The quality of the pencil work here—the delicate gradations of light and dark, and the way it melts into the ground— creates an atmosphere that is hard to describe. The figure’s mouth is open, and a fragile, arcing line extends from it. Is it a breath, a song, or a thread connecting the figure to some unseen world? The way the artist handles the material, with such sensitivity and vulnerability, reminds me of the work of artists like Paul Klee or perhaps even the outsider artist Adolf Wölfli. Like them, Jankowski transforms simple materials into something profound. Art, after all, is an act of alchemy, turning lead into gold, or in this case, pencil into poetry.