Reviews

"Curator included Ilona Wojciechowska’s paintings, contrasting her architectural city/landscapes with the other artists’ more organic interpretations. Simplified depictions of buildings in structured, geometric forms conjure up our post-modern, minimalistic world through subtle color modulations. In this way, the stark geometric forms become animated and cohesive, tempering the angularity of the works’ elements.

Ilona Wojciechowska’s love of New York City glowed from her canvases in applications of acrylic paint, cardboard and tissue, her saturated color, geometric renderings of buildings juxtaposed with moody, atmospheric pastel passages. Alluding to concrete and steel canyons, the works were simultaneously hard-edged and lyrical. She gave subtle commentary on our recent national election (...). No satire could be found though, in her accompanying series of vibrant interpretations of the Brooklyn Bridge".

Anne Rudder, art reviewer (Gallery & Studio Art Magazine)

"Landscape architecture is a topic which misled many artists. It is easy for the painter to make a veristic cliché, where the details dominate the general expression and information overload. The works of Ilona Wojciechowska avoids these shortcomings by using mental shortcuts and her ability to treat her subjects synthetically. Maybe this is why the views from the artist’s canvases seems to be something between inaccurate memories and photographic records of visited places.

The architecture is portrayed here as if were frozen and by simplifying these forms, become a form of a poster, while to some extent symbolic. The painter achieved this effect by saving means of expression, often manipulating flat areas of solid color, absorbing unnecessary items that may distract attention from what is most important – mutual arrangements of solids and colored surfaces.

In her paintings, Ilona Wojciechowska makes an absolute selection of the components of reality, revealing compositional advantages transmitted to the canvases. Interestingly, by reducing the painted objects to simple characteristics of pop art, the artist harmonizes with the contemporary sensibility of the average viewer, whose perception is shaped by the Internet and snapshot scenes from television, is accustomed to quickly receive a clear, sharp, and generalized message. (Cityscape/City Landscape Most works were created in New York - from August 2014. Inspired by the architecture, referring to the previous series of the author, known in Poland as cityscapes)".

Paweł Jagiello, an art critic

"Ilona Wojciechowska portrays modern image of the city on the run. The images are similar to visions of minimalists, importing their work only when necessary.  Her paintings evoke the memories of neon signs.  The store forms in a pictogram city, ignoring the details in order to grasp the nature of the things imagined.  Details would have divided the whole, depriving the work from its purity".

Bogna Nowakowska, critic and an art historian

"Ilona Wojciechowska left Poland for the US only 2 years ago, and clearly fascinated with New York began her artistic encounter with the city. How to express the essence of the metropolis? Wojciechowska chose the esthetics of the constructivism: she fills the canvas with geometrical forms of the city buildings painted with acrylic joyful paint. The vertical and horizontal lines cross, as well as colorful rectangles divided by the windows, balconies, and other elements of the architectural landscape. Street gorges, clearance between high-rises, and the blue sky appearing here and there from behind the buildings. No people, no life, no bustle so typical for the New York City.

Wojciechowska chose the static model of the city, with the geometrical order like on the drafting board, new, fresh, untouched by time or dust. In contrast to the classic constructivism, a long tradition in Polish art that prefers black and white, the artist uses colors freely. Her vision of the city is a colorful meticulous work of art. Endearing in its simplicity, but impressive for the scale of composition.

The Polish artists pictures New York mainly through buildings that cover almost all of the sky. It is not the city of parks, squares and green lawns, nor the city of restaurants, cafes or stores. The soccer field painted on one of the works is just an opportunity to integrate another colorful spot and creates another perspective of looking at the buildings. The big, out of proportion dogs on the other painting are another decorative elements and the artistís expression of weariness with the stone landscape. Other two paintings showing the Guggenheim Museum catch the eye with the red roosters appearing on top of the roof, added in an emotional impulse and creating another perspective of this famous structure.

Ilona Wojciechowska ensures that all of her paintings show real buildings of Manhattan, though for the random viewer they may seem as symbols of any modern metropolis like Chicago, Shanghai or Frankfurt.

The derivative part of Wojciechowska creations presented on her exhibitions are New York painting abstractions, showing the city in the most common aspects. In between the colorful geometrical forms, she included the most recognizable elements of the city like Statue of Liberty or the Wall Street Bull sculpture.

The other type of her work, also resulting from the fascination with the city, are small paintings done with more relaxed hand Ė little city landscapes lacking the monumental dimension and geometrical perspective, more informal, more human, personal glance at the normal city"...

dr Czeslaw Karkowski, senior editor, an art critic