Childishsly easy paintings

The paintings by Anna Podlewska: hermetic for some, whilst spontaneous and childishly easy for others. Whether the promise expressed in the exhibition’s title may be kept, will only depend upon ourselves.

Either we’ll get lost amidst our attempts at guessing, of the sort of What should I look for, or actually see, in these paintings?, or, we accept them just as they are. Podlewska’s pictures do not require any interpreting key from their viewers. These paintings are childishly easy indeed. They are like a sun, a natural sun. They are self-sufficient, too.

If anyone of us happens to be an art historian, I’d rather s/he forgets about it. If we think we know our ways around what is en vogue in today’s art, this sort of knowledge gets now useless for the purpose. Anna Podlewska is someone to whom ‘being en vogue’ is rather an out-of-date thing, really.

In the paintings themselves, we too will find it rather hard to detect any allusions, meanings, or sings. These pictures do not demand anything on our part. What a relief! At last, we have got an art that does not shout, or demand focus and attention for its own sake. On the contrary, we have now been allowed to get melted or submerged in a condition of which normally we could only dream.

This is an art of tender solace, one which lets you forget about all the other paintings we have (most unfortunately) had to watch in our lives. It so appears that art can be kind sometimes, as it mercifully protects us against the world – and against itself.