Art-objects created by Jana Wisniewski usually refer to the broadly interpreted rule of symmetry. First, these works are most often geometric bodies or surfaces intersecting in the three dimensional space. Secondly, the planes of these figures are mostly covered with photographs which are close-ups of skin surfaces and of growing grass. A Photograph as such can be viewed as a symmetric copy of some fragment of the physical world. And for the third, the artist frequently uses mirrors and that which is reflected in them. The symmetry of a mirror reflection and the objects before that mirror is very similar to what we find in a photograph. In any case the realism of a photograph was always generally understood to be like a mirror reflection of reaiity. If something would be photographed, the photography of it would be placed before a mirror and its reflection would be photographed, then again if the photograph of that reflection would be placed before a mirror and photographed, etc., then due to imperfections of the reproduction process the image on the photographs would become more and more blurred; yet we still would think of it as of a reflection of a substantial reality.                                                                                                               DEUTSCH>>>

Owing to the usage of mirrors the works of Jana Wisniewski have specific inner dynamics, because mirrors reflect the other fragments of other works or also whatever is there around them and these reflections are variable depending on the position of the observer. That creates specific tensions, in which we can find some sensual magic, but first of all they provoke us to question of art foundations. For example, one of the works is built of a horiztontal square surface, three quarters of which are covered with photographs of grass and the remaining quarter is covered with the "real" plastic imitation of grass. On the half of the diagonal a trangular two-sided mirror is set up vertically. This mirror reflects an artificial photographic picture of a real grass on its one side, and on the other side it reflects the picture of a "real" imitation of grass. The situation is even more complicated when such a work is placed outdoors on real grass.

Yet, showing contradictions between art and nature is not the point for the artist; she rather makes us conscious of the mental conditions of the process of seeing and so the nature of the object perceived is not so important. By confronting different kinds of pictures, she creates a game between the notions of veracity and imitation (or the original and the reproduction), and this game can help us to become aware of the psychological background of such categories. A mirror or a photograph just reflect a picture, according to the rules of optics, without any evaluation. On the other hand our anxiety about the degree of reality or truthfulness comes from the need of grasping the most essential thing. Meanwhile photographs of grass or of a skin (where hairs grow like grass) evoke associations with something superficial and trivial. Such an impression is reinforced by repetitions of forms - from the mass anonymity of grass blades or hairs seen on an individual photograph, to the repetition of the whole picture or sometimes to the usage of a rhythmically waved material as a background.

One also might think that a factor of essential importance for the artist is the regularity of the geometric figures on which photographs are glued; they might symbolize the mathematical pattern underlying individual phenomena of nature, reflected in photographs, or mirrors. Yet there is no univocal indication for the right interpretation. For example, one work consists of a few square photographs of grass, which are glued on a waved background, and that evokes associations with the abstract paintings of Kazimierz Malewicz which were intended to express the sense of the pure absolute.

Yet the usage of squares which are not pure geometrical figures but consist of photographs first of all suggests the tension between the abstract and the concrete. No law on reality is being declared by the artist. The observer is the one to decide what is essential for him and he should become aware of the motives underlying his own reactions.

Sometimes it may happen like in the novel "Tom Harris" by Stefan Themerson, where the hero speculated why in a mirror his left side is being changed into his right one, yet at the same time there is no upside-down change.

Obviously, a mirror doesn't change sides, it is only when someone partly transfers the sense his "I" identity to the reflection in a mirror that the whole confusion takes place.

Adam Sobota