The images created by artist Jay Malinowski emerge from a textured and layered mixture of wax, newsprint and dripping paint rendered onto wood panels. Malinowski’s work is figurative, focusing on the face developed through a series that can be viewed as a whole or as individual finished pieces. The mood throughout the exhibition is somber due to the choices Malinowski makes in his varied yet limited palette. However, there is a luminous glow within the work itself bringing to each stage of a series a lifelike essence that is unique and refreshing. Although his roots are in Montreal, Malinowski is now a Toronto based artist who recently graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from Queen’s University in Kingston. This solo exhibition runs from September 29th, 2004 to October 24th, 2004 at Gallery Bibianne at the corner of King and Sherbourne.
“Collecting Identities”, is one of the series of paintings at this exhibition. Numbered from one to nine, each mixed media work is twenty-four by twenty-nine inches in size. They hang in a row along two walls in sequence from which the emergence of a mans face can be tracked. Examining this series as a whole there is a consistency in colour, tone and with the addition of each detail the eye easily flows from one work onto the next until it rests on the final face of the sequence. In this series Malinowski uses a palette consisting of browns, yellows and purple slowly building as the series progresses to bring out the looming facial features. At first glance this series gives the impression of birth through the building of layers to the final image. One gets a sense of completion as one's eyes come to rest on the final, completed face. Upon close inspection of each individual work one begins to see how many layers are found within each painting. So instead of seeing this series as the building blocks of a final and completed face one can begin to look at it as the complicated and intertwining layers that make up each individual. In the first work in this series one can see recent news headlines and photos from newspapers collaged into a backdrop and then partially covered with layers of wax and oil paint, textured, dribbled and scraped
allowing the newsprint to be exposed in some areas and completely obscured in others. Throughout each individual piece in this series the layers of wax and paint begin to build slowing exposing the facial features while obscuring the underlying media influences within the layers until one can no longer see them in the final face. So instead of being left with a sense of birth and renewal Malinowski’s work speaks of the underlying identities intertwined in the layers within.
Malinowski’s work varies from series to series. At times building up the image through multi textured layers and at others it’s as if he is tearing them down. What ever the case may be one walks away with a better understanding of the underlying, hidden complexities within us all.
Written by Liana R.
http://www.gallerybibianne.com
