There is no doubt that the formation of calendars in all cultures of the world resulted from observation of astronomical phenomena, at the same time attentive “listening to nature”. This is exactly the path Kinga Nowak follows, noting with a painter’s sensitive eye the changing light, colors, or the aura of the individual months of the year, which eludes attempts at verbalization. At the same time she is aware of the climate changes occurring nowadays, so that in January and February a symphony of white is penetrated by an orangish sun, melting even the deepest layers of snow, and in May comes the time for harvesting during the all too soon coming hot summer. The artist’s choice of colors with which she defines the various months, on the one hand, seems to correspond with everyday experience (the greens of March, the grays of November), on the other, reveals how subjective our “experience” of nature is (the ultramarine of December), which consists not only of a superficial view of things, but also of the power of memories: events, smells, feelings or emotions.

The artist also does not hesitate to show the spatiality of the landscape, composing it based on the relief surfaces of geometric forms. She also invites us to a peculiar game, a visual puzzle, discreetly placing in the pages of the calendar the digits denoting successive months, so that they are “at first glance” almost imperceptible. This is because he is aware that numbers are not only a matter of accounting, but also an extremely important element to help build the contemporary imago mundi. Thus, operating with the language of abstraction, using industrial materials (mdf board from which she makes her reliefs), Kinga Nowak creates a calendar, which is both a part of the history of the “long duration” of this particular form of visual accounting of time, and brings completely new artistic solutions.

Agnieszka Jankowska-Marzec

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