You Have to Wrap Yourself in Metal
Interview with Maria Kiesner, conducted in the artist’s studio in Warsaw’s Praga district, before the opening of the exhibition “Iceland.”
Why did you invite us to Iceland?
Sometimes a journey changes a person. That’s what happened to me. Maybe because I rarely spend time in nature, or maybe because it was a trip with my teenage daughter. We chose the destination at her request, and only during the trip did I realize I was fulfilling my own dreams as well. We did the classic bus loop around the island with a tour organized by a small travel agency. During those long drives, the landscape outside the window kept changing, almost like in a kaleidoscope. I loved sitting next to the driver. From there I had a wide view through the front window — the only one that didn’t change color, unlike the tinted ones in the back. Our stops were often by volcanoes or ore deposits, so I could study the colors of the earth and rocks. We also climbed to places where the view stretched all the way to the horizon.
Did anything in particular catch your attention?
For the first time in my life I saw such an intense black. In the Polish landscape it basically doesn’t appear on the surface. In Iceland I felt as if I were traveling through a giant color wheel, cutting out fragments like slices of cake. First I would sink into blacks, greens, and graphites, only to suddenly drown in ochres or sandy tones. I fought with myself not to fall asleep during the drive — the landscape changed so quickly. If I took a map of Iceland now and stood with it next to the paintings, I could point to where each palette comes from.
Iceland lies far to the north. Did the different angle of sunlight affect how you perceived color?
In one of the paintings I recreated a very characteristic Icelandic overexposure. You see a dark sky, and the buildings gleam in the light. Here you can only see such light when a storm is coming. In Iceland I experienced that effect almost every day. Once we stopped in a town with very beautiful fish-processing halls. I didn’t paint them because their form was too obvious, but I was captivated by the moment when the whole area was filled either with bright light or deep shadow, which immediately brought out a clear drawing of verticals and horizontals.
Your paintings aren’t pure color-based abstraction.
Of course I was looking for architecture. At first I stubbornly searched for geothermal structures. Before we left, a photographer who had just done a fashion shoot in Iceland warned me to expect geometric pipes cutting through valleys. In the end it wasn’t the pipes that caught my attention, although I looked for them constantly. Instead, I was drawn to all kinds of masts. One of the paintings was created because of them. I used an old postcard. I wanted to show how masts organize space. The corrugated metal façades also create rhythm. Iceland’s climate is so harsh that you have to wrap yourself in metal, almost can yourself. In Poland you’re more likely to see buildings covered with wood.
You look at architecture in a very specific way.
I don’t know if it’s visible in my painting, but I basically cut buildings out. They’re a constant test of what remains lit and what hides in shadow. I also like mystery. Sometimes buildings emerged from the fog. I painted suburbs with recreational cottages. They reminded me of Polish landscapes from the PRL era and holiday resorts. At the same time they looked like the setting of a Scandinavian crime story. I like that kind of tension hidden in architecture.
Jim Jarmusch also likes to show entire city blocks seen through a window.
Night on Earth is a generational experience for me. The characters in his film looked at different cities from a taxi. I watched landscapes from a minibus. The trip took place in August, so we slept on campsites, less often in hotels or hostels. That camping atmosphere stayed with me. People traveling around Iceland get up very early. In the evening you fall asleep in a place full of people, and when you wake up at 6 a.m., everyone is gone. Even the hotels felt deserted. You sense that someone was literally here a second ago but left. We also disappeared quickly. Our guide took care of an attractive daily plan, adjusted to the group’s mood. He didn’t push himself into the spotlight, stayed a bit in the background. No campfire storytelling.
Did you reveal your profession to him?
Of course — in the first lines of my email. We spent many hours together during the drives. The guide talked about the Faroe Islands, Norway, and his business plans. After we returned to Warsaw, he sent videos showing himself crossing the same passes, now covered in snow. I really enjoyed that glimpse into a nomadic life.
The Iceland in your paintings is devoid of people. Houses without inhabitants?
That’s indeed the question I hear most often — why I don’t reserve space for people in my paintings. I simply don’t want them to steal attention. A human figure always raises questions about who is being portrayed. I prefer the narrative to focus on architecture. In Iceland it was easier because there weren’t many people visible anyway. Often I didn’t have to create anything. Once we visited a town covered by lava, whose inhabitants were evacuated within hours after a volcanic eruption — they had only moments to grab hand luggage. A photo exhibition on site told the story. We ended up there by accident after the weather worsened and we changed plans. It was a moving experience. We started looking for films and found a documentary about those events. It wasn’t the first time I was drawn to the motif of deserted streets. Years ago I felt something similar in an empty New York.
You mean that New York, the big metropolis?
Yes, but at a particular moment. When we arrived for vacation, the city was full of life. A few days later the attack on the World Trade Center happened. Suddenly the metropolis became silent. For several days the streets looked abandoned. That dramatic emptiness of urban space moved me deeply. The Icelandic town buried in lava evoked similar feelings. I painted a work about it. I intensified the effect with a black geometric form — the lava frozen at the doorstep. Both the story of the place and its emptiness touched me. As if the prey had turned on the hunter. My daughter, influenced by these sights, began asking why people can’t live in those houses. They are beautiful buildings. Imagine having a new home with sofas, wardrobes, televisions — and leaving it all behind with only a small carry-on bag. You lose the right to return. From afar the settlement looked like any other suburb.
Some buildings in your paintings resemble geological structures, despite the clear straight lines.
When I returned from New York, I started painting works inspired by photos from that period. I felt that the stone façades of buildings, the tall cold walls of skyscrapers, had turned into canyons. Add smoke and a kind of post-apocalyptic silence. After those experiences I focused on modernist architecture. It feels somewhat unreal to me. It has something utopian about it. Interestingly, architects created those structures believing they were building a better world. The geological character of my works also comes from my inclination toward abstraction. I really like the way Włodzimierz Pawlak thinks about geometry — in his work a line suggests a form.
Tell me about the gas stations.
I like the motif of energy infrastructure. In Iceland gas stations are often the only centers of life — places where after a long drive you can eat, drink, stop, rest for a moment. They hang in the landscape. This is especially striking in winter photos, when there is only snow and sky around. I value Iceland for its economy and precision. Even at tourist attractions, the parking lot always had exactly the right number of spaces. Everything is minimalist, just right. That’s why the island landscape and silence are so overwhelming, so relaxing. Even at the airport — usually associated with rush — the atmosphere was so calm and sleepy that we almost missed our return flight.
