Lento sfumato 2019

Curator: "Lento sfumato," created in 2019 by Lech Jankowski. It's a graphite drawing on paper, exhibiting a landscape with abstract elements. What captures your attention first? Editor: Honestly, it feels… spectral. Like a memory glimpsed through fog. The blurred shapes hover, and those vertical lines—do they represent trees, perhaps?—seem almost ethereal. It gives me this sense of quietude, a very introspective stillness. Curator: That stillness is something I also noticed. Lech uses a minimal palette, restricting it to grayscale to build the misty landscape. But look closer—the geometric form disrupts that tranquility. What symbols might that form be suggesting? Editor: It's interesting because geometric shapes often signal order and rationality, but here, the blurring technique—"sfumato," which, as you know, translates to "smoky"—subverts that. Perhaps Lech is probing the limits of human understanding or hinting at a deeper symbolic dimension that transcends what we readily perceive? The little figure at the bottom is particularly interesting too, juxtaposing against this smoky, dreamlike quality with a sense of lightness. Curator: Exactly. And observe the base landscape section rendered in dense hatching and vertical lines compared to the smooth treatment above. I wonder, does it point towards some form of dichotomy? Editor: I think it absolutely suggests dualism—the conscious versus the subconscious, perhaps. And the very name, "Lento sfumato," implying a "slow fading" suggests a gradual, almost meditative transition between those realms. Curator: Do you believe that there's an engagement with nature and geometry coexisting here? It's abstract but maintains a sense of tangible form. Editor: Precisely, this resonates with the visual tension that mirrors the balance, or imbalance, that modern individuals face, navigating between rationalised physical realms, nature, and elusive realities. Curator: It feels almost like a study of the impermanence of things. This conversation helps me observe the artwork in more ways. Editor: And to find comfort with mystery in something familiar. The blending of artistic methods allows us to have new experiences while taking in the landscape.