Z zemsty [Out of Revenge]

In the late 1990’s Jadwiga Sawicka began creating “written paintings” – on a pink, skin-toned background she painted/wrote messages in big black letters. Explicit both in terms of form and content, they often constitute fragments of larger pieces. The artist usually deletes any diacritical characters, while the order of writing, determined by the format of the painting, is distorted. The words are incorrectly divided, broken, beginnings blend with endings, and the doubled letters destroy the logic of the content and force one to look for some kind of a sensible reference point. The message loses its flow and becomes comprehensible only after a longer analysis. Then, the words which are taken out of context and function autonomously against the pink background, suddenly gain power. By manipulating the viewer’s perception, Sawicka effectively deals with the thoughtless acceptance of what is directly given/written. In the avalanche of information we encounter every day, the content is accepted almost automatically. By building her absurd configurations, the artist paradoxically brings back sense to words and forces one to actively search for it.

The background in Sawicka’s paintings is sometimes interpreted as a body. The flesh-coloured, lingerie pink is stereotypically treated as a feminine colour. What is recorded on canvas is, therefore, metaphorically recorded on a woman’s body. This gesture, therefore, is not neutral – the body is determined by the emotionally filled verbal message. The words which the artist uses are often part of the repertoire of negative terms for women (e.g. Bad), or taken out straight from police records. Z zemsty [Out of Revenge], and especially Ucięła/uciekła [She Cut, She Ran Away] introduce an element of sensation. In case of the latter work, there is an additional implicit female subject introduced. As in all of Sawicka’s works, these provoke one to create a story, to write “the rest”. The tone is categorical and accusing. Such signs/writings on the body represent the image and the state of a woman stigmatized and lost in the order of the language dominating her. The word/language covers and overshadows the body, and hence identity.

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