TIMELESSNESS
At the turn 2005 I started the project timelessness related to casts. The target intentions were spatial objects, an idea that was strongly and specifically shaped inside of me. I started working with gypsum after a period of preparations that lasted for half-a-year. Dance and improvisation made me realize my withheld and collected emotions and have taught me how to deal with them. I used the experience which I had gained during the photo session.. A camera registered my body shape, bending, facial expressions, and the tension, everything that was in me. Since then the studio became a space without time.
pieces – feet
Practically all the subsequent stages of preparation and then implementation of the target led to the same result, but through different means of expression. As a result, I did a vivisection of my own personality. I got to the hidden recesses of my soul and at the same time I faced them and overcame the weaknesses.
»It was a journey that should take place (…) with your head held high (…) It was necessary to cross the dark and desolate valley, to go to an empty area, on the plain uplands which extended into infinity. The imagination was liberated now from the bondage of fear, was associated with the Vision. While an internal, supporting Act, suited the meaning.« Clifford Still, 1959
I get up at night, because the June sunrise delights, inspires with a light with blue grayness, shadow of the disintegrating thoughts, unfinished emotions of a young fate. She undergoes accidental sleep, to regain energy, to sort out her feelings. Dancing on the paints surface, taken from a lighter gray drawing, figures like a sabre cut in graphic. Dry point? Yes! Like a duel, a duel alone with herself. With tenacity, determination, weakness at the turn of her own imagination about life, love, death. Uncompromising pressure of the morning breaks the layer of the crumbling gypsum form of the model, which is identical with the drawings, the graphics, and the cast. Identical with Magdalena, her tensions of an irrepressible necessity of existence beyond time, in timelessness… A black image of the plane spans the light, never to share it with us again. A painful silence of drawings, kept still in their form of expecting gestures. The graphics of cut figures, a duel for the next morning. Forms crumbling as the desert sand called forth by the time from monolith rocks. All consistent, identical with Magdalena and her timelessness.
Piotr Smolnicki, from the exhibition catalog
»Infulfilled to the very end, rushing from plane to plane, she is collecting the forms of today, carrying them into the future dimension.« Professor Irena Snarska
From contemplation to form. From reason to secrecy. From getting to know her own body, to looking for the spiritual dimensions of the created images. Drawn building of the space that surrounds us and penetrates the human form, it can be seen above all in graphics. The human body is a biological tool in them (similar to graphical tools) necessary for the registration of the stimuli of the external world. The stimuli then processed by sensitivity and talent. We perceive the world around us with our senses. Thanks to them, we connect with the past. Looking for secrets of her art she goes back to the beginning, when art was magical and closely connected with the sphere of sacrum. When the artist zealously created not for himself, and the act of creation was more important than the destination. In her lyrical and expressive works, the author places a strong emphasis on the freedom to choose the form most appropriate to the defined content and the specific situation.
Krzysztof Olszewski, from the exhibition catalog
…expressive, but created with a subtle, delicate line, showing the human soul rather than the body, giving rise to association with what is ephemeral and inexpressible, something that does not fit with the biological understanding of human nature…
A. Gniotek, Magdalena Janus – Timelessness, http://www.artinfo.pl/pl/blog/relacje/wpisy/magdalena-janus-bezczas2/
blue drawings, were made to help with the realization of objects. Thinking of the structure, form and the different options quickly escaped me. I was lost deep into the world of interpenetrating lines.
the wings cycle is a series of graphics coming out from drawing, done in the technique of dry point. The initial soft drawings became concrete, strong. In the graphic form a line is still searching but at the same time dynamic. Subsequent prints register the process of creating the graphics plate.
the figure cycle represents the particular, stopped poses. The graphics assume the diversified form, from quickly plotted dynamic sketches to detailed, well-developed matrices. The cycle was made in the technique of dry point.
the self-portrait cycle was made in the technique of dry point, offset and collagraphy. The selection of the matrix, the order of printing and the use of appropriate colors gave the effect of individual, unique prints.
The paintings towards a hole are registered on the edge of dreams; are detached from reality. The starting point was a set of graphics created by Piotr Smolnicki. The next layer was formed by my dance improvisation. Footprints, stills and bodies saved in the dance were finished with quick gestures. The last phase was a thin layer of varnish or resin that overlaid selected parts of the image. The pictures constantly change. I was watching those images for hours, at different times of the day and night. It allowed me to unearth the fragments which were written in them by nature, depending on the light.
Last series of graphic entitled in the depths was made in the technique of offset and monotypes. Initially I created graphics on unique, delicate, handmade paper, then on plates made of resin. The works reflect the depth of an individual. Their fragility and at the same time the power to exist in spite of anything. Planes of experience and layers of personality create multi-layered images. The fascination of being beyond time, being in different spaces at the same time, has spawned these prints of shadows.
Intended destination of the timelessness project were spatial forms entitled casts. Each of them was made from the very thin pieces linked together. Working on these casts was connected with the enormity of unimaginable physical and emotional experience. Hundreds of hours of sessions during which I was waiting for fragments to harden became a ritual dance of my soul. The initial expectation when I felt that the plaster became solid, the attention necessary not to do the slightest move. After a while tingling in the upper and lower limbs, congealment, crossing the pain threshold, achieve a deep meditative state, detachment of the body. Getting to a state of timeless, nirvana, a sense of warmth from the plaster which is summoning me, total focus, re-detachment – material this time, leaving the cast, relief, peace, elation.
