Poltrona Viola für Frau Pina B. 2018

Lech Jankowski’s “Poltrona Viola für Frau Pina B.” is a small painting, about a foot high, in a private collection, and it’s a world unto itself. I imagine it came into being through layers and layers of doing and undoing, a constant push and pull. I sympathize with Jankowski. I’m thinking about the luscious, almost violently purple strokes and ridges on the right. What does that title mean to the painting? I wonder if Frau Pina B. ever sat in a purple armchair? The paint is thickly applied, almost sculpted, with the dark section on the left looking like coagulated tar, cracked and aged. Maybe Jankowski was thinking of Kiefer as he worked. That purple! It's so confident, a bold assertion against the darkness. The energy it gives off! Artists are constantly riffing off each other's energies, it's how we keep the conversation going. Painting is like a dance with uncertainty, each mark a step into the unknown.