“At the edge of the outer space”
Stanisław Henryk Kowalczyk
I have been observing the path of artistic development which Ola Herbowska-Matera follows. I admire how, in the world where new fashionable but sometimes temporary artistic trends blossom, Ola, with an iron consistency ‘Old Masters’, pursues the appointed goal. What I have in mind here is not only the strive for a workshop perfection of her own laborious painting technique but also an artistic search for spiritual space on the enclosed plane of a painting deciding upon the uniqueness of art.
Looking at the paintings by Ola, words of another artist- who, just as Ola, regards himself as an easel painter- come to my mind. The artist in question is prof. Jerzy Mierzejewski who said that “painting is something which defeats a fortuitousness of an ordinary and common perception directing vision to strange and metaphysical areas”. Ola’s latest paintings are such metaphysical windows through which one can see the outer space along with a universal dimension of a human being as well his quest to timeless absolute filtered by the artist’s personality like through a crystal net removing any unnecessary interferences and noises.
Although, they are not deprived from internal expression, Ola’s paintings emanate with a bizarre composure and harmony. I think that she creates them owing to her fantastic sense of colour and its subtle nuances as well as thanks to her unusual ability of idiosyncratic contrasting.
It is peculiar, that on the, one can say, worn out ground of easel painting, there still emerge artists who are able to create new surprising works of art enchanting audience with their mysterious beauty. In my opinion, Donald Kuspid was wrong announcing the end of art in his book, in 2005 (The End of Art).
I strongly believe that art does not come to an end till there exists a human— and Ola is evidence of that.
