Techniki wlasne
Unique Method and Technique

Summary/Abstract: In 2001, the Art Museum in £ódŸ organised Wojciech Leder’s exhibition. His work can be considered in terms of ‘interference’ and ‘intarsia’. The artist considers them in as objects which ‘play the role of pictures’. Pictures don’t show things, but things ‘show’ pictures. He refers to social rituals and theatre. The process of ‘imaging’ is connected with ‘interference’ and ‘intarsia’. Pictures can be compared with cut and polished pieces of rocks, whose surface shows different forms of intarsia. Interference is the result of intarsia. When an artist works with bee’s wax, applies it to the surface of canvases, and then cuts lines and polishes the surface, he/she produces unique effects. Encaustic techniques are very flexible. Lines and surfaces overlap and form intricate, rhythmic patterns. Optic illusion contributes to further complication of our perception. Pictures are the result of the interference between an artist and his/her techniques and methods. Techniques and artists’ predispositions are closely connected with each other. Predispositions can only develop on the basis of appropriate techniques and methods. As the result of that process, artists form unique rules of their artistic thinking. The system is elastic and includes changes. The technique becomes a form of intarsia in creative process. Artists simultaneously ‘discover’ and ‘produce’ what they designed. When an encaustic artist removes portions of previously applied surfaces, he/she can see unexpected results of his/ her work. At that point, the artist has to often re-think the design. Forms in pictures are autonomic, they show how artists can ‘be themselves’. When artists try to learn about their own identity, they are confronted with the phenomenon of intarsia. That phenomenon modifies artists. The process can be continued endlessly. Leder learns while he works. He adopted an open-minded attitude towards his work. The artist uses different pigments to color other materials, with which he ‘builds’ his object-pictures. He uses ‘theatrical techniques’, which are connected with ‘make-up’ techniques used by actors. In 2003, I again saw Leder’s pictures. The artist is still faithful to his methods. He started adding ‘literary’ titles to his pictures. ‘Ordinare Agrum’ is a big, and heavy picture. It weighs about five hundred kilograms. It was built with ash and other ‘natural’ materials. He referred to the environment, and to the Romantic pantheism. He seems to be replacing Spinoza’s ‘Deus sive natura’, with modernist ‘Deus sive natura sive machina’. He believes that his object-pictures have metaphysical dimension.

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