Friseurfuge 2022

Lech Jankowski’s small painting, *Friseurfuge*, is made with paint on an indeterminate material. It looks like it happened through shifting, rubbing, wiping away… a building up and then a taking down. I wonder what Lech was thinking when he made this? I feel sympathy with the artist here, as I imagine the work coming into being. The paint is thin, worked into the surface, the texture looks quite grainy, and there are these dark, almost architectural structures embedded in the painting. You can sense the give and take. I love the colour palette – so restrained. It's almost as if he has limited himself to just greys and blacks to create the scene. It looks to me like a theatre set, or a room, with a view out to the world. These forms – are they ladders, are they trees? I see this work sitting well in a lineage of twentieth-century painting which balances representation and abstraction. Ultimately, painting is a conversation – across time, location, and practice. We’re all constantly inspiring each other. It’s such an embodied expression, and it embraces ambiguity, allowing for many different readings.