-------------------------------------------------------Gallery-2---7-12-1996---19-01-1997
HANNA LUCZAK
ZONES (installation)
Born in 1959 in Gniezno, studied in the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Poznan (PWSSP),
where in 1984 she gained a diploma in drawing and painting. Since 1984 she has been teaching
drawing at PWSSP in Poznan.
A drawing was and still remains one of the fundamental mediums of Luczak's artistic practice.
She treats it in a very autonomous way. She produced a lot of drawing installations by placing
ready-made objects into her compositions. She considers the interiors of galleries as an equal
space in which the drawing process can be continued on the walls and the floor. The artist
appreciates drawing for its simplicity and directness of transfere. Hanna Luczak in statements
about her own work often compared drawing with shamanic ritual and art with magic. In both
cases there is a similar attitude to what we may tentativelly call - the Mystery. For Hanna
Luczak drawing as well as the creation of definite spatial situations are a cognitive process
in which there appear paradoxically more questions than answers. Things which before seemed to
be obvious loose their unequivocal character.
A drawing, like a spell, is a way of conjuring on a sheet of paper or a wall any reality or an
order which exists purely in the imagination linking distant meanings. Both enable the artist
to evoke infinite amounts of abstract entities. There often appear in Luczak's drawings symbolic
signs or ideograms derived from various cultures and traditions, while their original meanings
have changed frequently. Invoked within a contemporary context they give the opportunity to
analyse whether they are legible and significant for contemporary viewers.
At the beginning of the 90's Hanna Luczak made a series of installations concerning the
phenomenon of "frozen" energy. A few of them had the same title "Break/Przerwa". This title
suggests a break in some activities and accumulation of latent energy. Objects used in these
works, such as a swing or a chair hung from the ceiling, were suspended in various stages of
their movement by thick metal chains. Undoubtely the chains suggest a state of suspension
imposed by force.
Arrows placed in longbows or fixed in crossbows constitute the main elements in another series
concerning "frozen energy" made at the same time. Arrows held at maximum tension as if about
to be fired, despite the fact that they were joined by chains, gives the impression of very
strong though only potential danger. The viewer has to overcome his/her anxiety to be able to
cross this very energined space which was traced by the trajectories of the arrows path,
although other elements of the installation suggested that their trajectory was supposed to
be in a completely different direction. In the work "Solar Plexus" from 1994 made for the
Labirynth Gallery in Lublin the viewer can see on a video screen placed in another room of
an aearial view of open space with tree-tops.
Since 1995 Luczak's work has increasingly sought to address questions about such delicate
matters of an individual's identity - a private space which is more strongly influenced by
public and exterior matters. In her latest installations the artist uses photography and
video.