Izabela Żółcińska
Capillary drawings

20.11.2008 – 10.01.2009

The pulse

“In 1628, the treaty by Harvey, describing the blood circulation, makes a breakthrough in the physiology of the human body. Assigned to the common rights of physics of forces and liquids, it becomes just one of many bodies. It is subject to strictly autonomous functioning, it is freed of the spirit: this is pure mechanism, automaton. ” Rational tendencies in science have caused a shift of weight from spirituality to the physicality in the meaning of human being and his body.

The first, “scientific” discovery of the body as a child consists in experimenting. The child discovers the “mechanism” of the organism, becoming familiar with the simple physiological functions responsible for the correct functioning of the body. The book education consisting in discovering human anatomy is the next step. At this time, the visual side of this discovery is very important, as the aesthetics of organs and systems stimulates the child's imagination. The adventure with human body becomes then a spiritual experience. The child in its discovery is suspended between two worlds, the real one and the fantastic one, which was perfectly reflected by Albert Barillé in the 1986 animated tale called “Il Etait Une Fois...La Vie”(“Once upon a time… Life”).

The conventional abstraction of the organism, close to the childish experiences, returns in the works of modern artists. The art allows to see the human anatomy in a way unheard of yet, and it is able to create the new abstractive reality, placed somewhere at the border of medicine and imagination.

This was the place Izabela Żółcińska discovered. The interest of the artist in the human organism on the symbolic and aesthetic field is focused on the human blood circulation, and specifically on the capillary network. In her new project, the artist presents the elaborated language of process structure and expresses herself through the capillary blood vessels regenerating in various spaces. The very concept of capillaries is redefined and universalised by the artist for the needs of her artistic language.

In her project “Capillary drawings”, Izabela Żółcińska builds multilevel anatomic visions, which are the effect of lengthy studies of the capillaries’ functions. The capillary system in its primary form provides for the artist the formal “module”, which transforms itself in combination with the artistic idea. At the first exhibition of “Capillary drawings” at the Simonis Gallery, the arrangement of works creates a set of works combined together in the form of a site-specific installation.

In such an arrangement, the artist intermediates between medicine or other science and the artistic concept, which subtly annexes the legacy modules of the exhibition space. The capillary forces make not only paintings and objects but also the gallery walls pulse, made alive by the network of capillary vessels. The flexibility of capillary vines allows the most unexpected shapes to enter their arrangements, which is compliant with the function of the capillary system, which, as the artist says, “acts in spite of everything”.

During the exhibition, the viewer may enter the reality created by Izabela Żółcińska. But will he be able to feel the pulse of the organism he meets there?

Agnieszka Okrzeja, Warsaw, November 2008