"Dreamed at Night by the Light of Day"
New Work by Alicja Bielawska at the Museum on the Vistula

From May 2018, Alicja Bielawska’s new work "Dreamed at Night by the Light of Day" is on view at the bistro at the Museum on the Vistula.

In Alicja Bielawska’s works, the point of departure is the material sphere of the everyday and the relations between objects, interiors and their users. The artist uses textiles, ceramics, metal and wood, shaping them into forms of sculptures creating a relationship with the viewers and the interiors and touching on issues of the relativity of perception and the role of memory. One of her fundamental tools is drawing, extending beyond the page to become sculpture. As Bielawska writes, “Drawing is connecting invisible dots, points of reference for possible but unfinished constellations.”

"Dreamed at Night by the Light of Day" is an installation created especially for the interior of the café at the Museum on the Vistula. The artist exploited the height of the interior to introduce a new space floating over the heads of the visitors. The work is built from fabric running along irregular arcs. Chiffon is printed with interpenetrating colours stressing the transience of divisions. The drawing of waving lines is answered by the rhythm set by ceramic balls. The artist introduces colours that are equally substantial and transient, establishing rhythms and changing under the influence of light. This variation depending on the time of day draws attention to the role of perception in how the work is received.

"Dreamed at Night by the Light of Day" fits within the interior but also opens up the architecture to a different experience. The work began with drawings, but when translated into space it suggests motion and outlines fragments of its trajectory. The artist’s earlier works, as well as treatises on colours and graphic scores, shine through this work. The title stresses the roles played by imagination, intuition and memory in the process of both creation and reception of the work.