Ridge
2022
Ridge is a site-specific work created for the solo exhibition As Above, So Below at BWA Olsztyn (2022).
As Above, So Below, BWA Olsztyn
08.04-15.05.2022
curator: Ewa Borysiewicz
“At the core of Bielawska’s interests are relationships: element–whole, fragment–entirety. The exhibition-situation the artist engineered doubles as a particular Rorschach test, through which we may see ourselves in the context of the Other and the Stranger. The title of the exhibition is a direct reference to the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm. For the alchemists, the former represented the individual, and the latter a community or the universe. The unity of mysticism, science, and art is symbolized by Hermes Trismegistus, a deity syncretized from the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. It is to Trismegistus that the following maxim is attributed: “That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above,” a formulation advancing that everything happening on one plane of reality also occurs in its other dimensions. To grasp a phenomenon in the micro therefore enables one to grasp its essence at the macro.
One must comprehend the particular’s core concept in order to probe the secret of the general – this notion underpins the arrangement of works in BWA Olsztyn’s main gallery. The artist assembled self-determining, autonomous canvases into configurations attuned to a larger spatial order: the building’s architecture, modular profiles, metal structures. The unconventional arrangement, which reveals impossible-seeming subversions, simultaneously challenges that structural order. As a result, Bielawska’s individual works, as well as their constellated form, firmly impress their influence on the surrounding environment.”
Text excerpt by Ewa Borysiewicz, 2022