Wilhelm Sasnal: Exploring the Image Through Painting
Wilhem Sasnal, born in Poland in 1972, collects and consumes images, very often without reflecting on the exact nature of this attraction: ‘There are things that intrigue me,’ he has stated in interviews. Sasnal came into prominence in the early 2000s when painting was undergoing a revival of sorts. And fittingly, for him, the medium of painting not only functions as a critique of images per se, but as a medium of image consolidation; a space where the edition of images is at its most efficient.
A sense of playful variety permeates the work of Sasnal. His paintings are perched on the border between the abstract and the representational, between the physicality of paint and the illusion of space, thus never really belonging to any one genre. His work has the ability to shift between critical self-awareness and blissful, expressionistic painting.
In practical terms, Sasnal insists on keeping a workmanlike approach to his paintings by attempting to finish each work in a single day. This goes contrary to the majority of oil-based methods that require longer drying times (such as glazing), and often results in awkward impasses, where an image that is of interest one day may become tedious the next; as such, a fast, spontaneous approach is required of the artist, yet one that comes not from an unknown, mystical force, but rather corresponds to a sense of post-industrial practical output.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Sasnal was born in the industrial town of Tarnow, at a time when Communism was still at the height of political and cultural ideology of Eastern Europe. Despite the years that have passed since then, the nightmarish hold of the Communist regime on the imagination is a recurring subject in his work. In ‘Portrait of Rodchenko, Lady’, Sasnal recaptures the iconic image of Soviet ideals as seen through the lens of Rodchenko ’s camera. Yet the painting seems nostalgic, almost to the point of pity, and the dark colours add a rather sombre mood, imbuing the image, in retrospect, with a sense of unrealised potential. This appropriation is typical of Sasnal and might ultimately be part of his larger ‘theme’: the collection and reinterpretation of images through painting.
RCIT.421-21/18