Peter Jankowski
Fitzroy Library Exhibition Space, 128 Moor Street, Fitzroy
22 June - 19 August 2010
The exhibited work by Peter Jankowski contains visual expression of subconscious imagery. His exhibition of oil paintings on canvas and pencil drawings on paper portray dream like images which have come from the submerged recesses of the mind.
Although he is an untutored artist he expresses his vision with sensitivity and in the case of his oil paintings with arresting colour harmonies and inventive forms.
There is a display of six oil paintings on canvas in the main section of the Fitzroy library. They are reminiscent of the carefully drafted paintings of Salvadore Dali in his surrealist period.
Global Worming, oil on canvas, 85 x 60 cm, 2010
Unlike Dali, Peter does not refer to clocks and drooping egg shapes. However he does utilise crumbling classical architecture in his painting Venice. A column with a Corinthian relief slopes at an angle, its base receding in a thin thread which joins to a face without form except for eyes nose and mouth which in turn are joined to a receding platform rising high over a horizon of mountains encircling a red desert. The cool blue of the face complements the warm ochres and reds of the desert and mountains, the latter set against a yellow skyline. Like all his work the meaning of this painting is enigmatic leaving much to the interpretation of the viewer.
Concern for the fate of our planet and fear of devastation caused by global warming are reflected in many of the oil paintings. This is not only conveyed by the title, Global Worming, but also by the image of a naked male figure with his back to the viewer holding a pink a huge Hibiscus flower which droops languidly over the cracked brown dry earth below him in Unwanted Roots. Also in Accident there is an arresting image of a stony coloured moon in a red sky hovering over mountains which appear to weep tears falling onto a bleak red desert. A sense of anxiety and apprehension is conveyed very powerfully by these works.
The exhibition contains 16 pencil drawings on paper, some of which are coloured. They provide a clue for the development of Peter’s oil paintings because the drawings contain swirling dream like shape. The sensitive line used by him and his inventiveness may have enabled him to experiment with forms which he adapted in his oils. He is not afraid to take his line for a walk and where he draws from nature as in his drawings of faces, plants and tree roots, he maintains an accuracy combined with a sensitive simplification of the forms.
This exhibition is well worth viewing and I hope Peter will continue to contribute to the Society.
Review by Nathan Moshinsky
Venice , oil on canvas, 45 x 60 cm, 2009