Coffin Portrait

The roots of Leszek Lewandowski’s objects reach back to his experiences with op-art and kinetic art. The artist is interested in visual perception, which he examines with the use of light, mirrors and networks of lines. In some of his works, Lewandowski employs a technique of placing a mirror and a neon light in a relatively shallow case made of plywood. In doing so, he achieves an effect of infinite depth, an illusion of space that draws the viewer in.

Lewandowski’s Coffin Portrait is one of a group of objects in which the artist’s examination of the mechanisms of perception is interwoven with deliberations on the subjects of the Absolute, spirituality and the order behind the illusions we encounter in our everyday contact with reality. Stela, whose shape references ancient grave markers; Macewa evoking Jewish tombstones; Memento, having the shape of an equal-armed cross; and Coffin Portrait, framed in a pentagon – all of these pieces are imbued with an element of transcendence connected not so much with a specific religious system but with a feeling of there being a higher power prevailing over the chaos. This specific metaphysical overtone is compounded by a symbolic treatment of light and its multiplication with the use of mirrors.

Coffin Portrait is a direct reference to funeral portraits seen in Poland from the early 17th c. to the end of the 18th c. Their shape was determined by the dimensions of the coffin’s shorter side, where they were attached and displayed during the requiem mass. These likenesses ensured the spiritual presence of the deceased and created an atmosphere of coexistence between the earthly and spiritual realms. After the burial, they were displayed inside churches to serve as epitaphs. In Lewandowski’s work, the lavishness of the Old-Polish portraits is done away with in favour of geometric minimalism, while the likeness of the deceased is supplanted by a reflection of the viewer in an illuminated mirror. Coffin Portrait is a secular epitaph in which the sacred mingles with the profane and the viewers – seeing their own image peering back at them from the other side of reality – is faced with the experience of both the end and endlessness.

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