ALBEMARLE

ADRIANWISZNIEWSKI

ADRIAN WISZNIEWSKIby CLARE HENRY

ADRIAN WISZNIEWSKI paints poetic yet idiosyncratic visions. Big pictures with big impact. Colourful fantasies of sunlit brilliance, overflowing patterns of people and panthers, mythic birds and beasts, the bright beauty of star flowers, trumpet lilies, chalice gold ranunculus, feathery green fronds, furled flags, midnight skinny dipping, and throngs of handsome, poised boys and girls, all, like Dorian Gray, eternally young.

For Wiszniewski has a distinctive, very personal take on life. His world is seen through a kalidoscope of stained glass. His paintings evoke the richness of medieval heraldry or illuminations, a sort of modern-day Book of Hours. Colours glow: intense orange, blood red, shrill lime, hot egg yellow, cobalt, soft velvet violet, grass green, pine green, emerald green, prussian blue, jet-black. His figures wear electric purple pants, lemon yellow shirt, fierce viridian and aqua jumpers, pink ties. Cowboys sport complementary coloured neckerchiefs: red and green, blue and orange. Not a hair out of place on their glossy auburn heads. No blue eye is panicked, no mouth grimaces, no expression is perturbed. All Wiszniewski’s decorous characters face adventure - or misadventure - with calm acceptance, as though they know their story is predestined. As of course it is.

Wiszniewski’s personal myths and imaginings always contained serene, idealised young men and women who play their roles to perfection. His early pictures from the 1980s were from the start full of dreamy innocent creatures, single languid youths inhabiting a peaceful Arcadian landscape. But this new work, on show at the Albemarle Gallery in London for the first time, is composed with more authority, more bravura colour, denser, more determined composition and a more certain, sure hand. Wiszniewski retains his original romantic vision - but family life now intervenes. Where once the male figure dominated the scene, today girls abound, long tresses trailing, lithe bodies - mysterious, seductive - engrossed in what they do. “There are some sexual overtones to these pictures,” confirms Wiszniewski.

And what is that that they do? Where are we being led? What are we being told? We are not sure, and neither is the artist. “I rarely set off with a plan,” he says. “I’d rather take an idea for a walk and see what happens. It keeps my interest! I’ve always worked this way. You draw threads together and create things you didn’t realise you knew. That way I can reveal hidden truths. There is a subconscious element.”

Melancholia is one example. Eight figures make up a large tableau or performance with senior boys entering stage right. A youngster sits on a bed, another hides under it. Cupid waits with his arrow. A spent balloon sits on the floor, with mother, maybe elder sister as onlooker. The turbulent backdrop reinforces the stage setting. What to make of it? Durer’s famous image of the same name features melancholia as one of the traditional four temperaments. But this is a contemporary drama. Is a child ill? Is he getting better? The figures are pensive, sober, but not sad. “It’s a celebration!” explains the painter. “The child recovers.” Ah! Adrian’s famous irony.

More puns, more irony can be found in Reading Allowed, Wild Boys, Three Shepherds and a Wildcat or Two Revolutionaries Whittling and Flagging, all complex in metaphor, lively in abundant symbols, while The Golden Ring, one of my favourites, displays a gentle sensibility against a dense inky nocturnal backdrop.

Always contrary, told not to use the colour black for a hospital picture, Wiszniewski proceeded in the opposite direction. Here many pictures have a black background, all the better to set off crystal clear colour. “I once did a work titled ‘If in doubt use Black’”, he tells me. And adds, “With these pictures I wanted to get rid of any muddiness and enjoy pure colour again. And I admire Manet, Matisse, Chagall and Cadell - they used black too.”

Another large scale oil, Revolutionaries on the Beach includes six male and female readers, writers, visitors, enquirers. The coastal setting is sombre, the sea dense and still beneath a thunder-laden sky. One girl’s solid turquoise blue glove investigates; beaked birds with long tails - surely never seagulls? - make sharp, pointed shapes. A pen hovers over a vial of ink.

The Changeling is composed entirely of women. Images of a masked winged creature, doll-child, doorway and tall church candlestick hint at an annunciation, or possibly merely a setting for Pre-Raphaelite hair and period costumes? The Changeling as subject has inspired many books and films from the original 1622 version onwards. It is a dark story, here transposed by the artist into a less upsetting but non the less memorable image.

More unusual for this artist are a handful of nudes. The title of one, Transexual Roof Party, says it all, while Boy from Carcassonne is intentionally homoerotic. “I’ve always been anti-macho,” he says. Strangely androgynous, innocent yet suggestive, these sweet faced, fine-boned creatures loiter as though in a bower of bliss, happy to be stared at as they calmly pose among rampant, flamboyant vegetation.

Innumerable interlocking shapes personify these new pictures, all created with fluent, flowing, taut, curvilinear draughtsmanship. “Drawing is the basis here. Some were inspired by older drawings, most are brand new. They all have good foundations.” While some narratives puzzle, others are witty puns. He expects his viewers to work at un-scrabbling his stories. It is part of the fun.

For Wiszniewski’s pictures ARE fun. They are entertaining. Rich eye candy with a hidden message or metaphor. He is a lateral thinker and expects us to follow him as he twists, turns and jumps. Here decorative devices and complexity of composition are challenging, with long rigorous lines encompassing sinuous curves, curlicues or arabesques, yet all redeemed by his virtuoso use of colour.

Wiszniewski came to prominence as one of the famous New Glasgow Boys who led the revival of figurative painting in Scottish art in the 1980s. Their international standing was confirmed in 1987 with exhibitions worldwide, plus the acclaimed Edinburgh Festival exhibition, The Vigorous Imagination, held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Wiszniewski first trained as an architect, then as a painter, both at Glasgow School of Art, which has produced so many art world stars in the last 25 years. His Glasgow colleagues Steven Campbell and Ken Curry had an influence. “Steve’s work was very complex and Ken’s organised and inclusive, so I tried to keep mine simple. Use one word instead of twenty!”

A versatile guy, he also has been involved in design, tapestry, ceramics, neon, furniture, stage design, printmaking and lately turned his attention to three plays, three books and performance pieces. In October his novel, Touching Cloth was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize. “In Glasgow it’s an accepted thing for painters to write. Think of Alasdair Grey and John Byrne.”

But right now Wiszniewski’s focus is painting, nothing but serious painting. “I’m 50 plus. I’ve done lots of experimenting, hopped around, got everything out of my system. This is my time now.”

CLARE HENRY New York, 2011

Former Financial Times and Herald art critic, 1980-2007, correspondent State UK & Sculpture magazine USA

1 Melancholia gouache on paper 116 x 150 cm (46 x 59 in)

2 Egg Collector oil on canvas 152 x 122 cm (60 x 48 in)

3 The Golden Ring oil on canvas 152 x 122 cm (60 x 48 in)

4 First Anachronism of the Day oil on canvas 122 x 183 cm (48 x 72 in)

5 Revolutionaries on The Beach oil and oil pastel on canvas 158 x 237 cm (62 x 93 in)

6 Man With Flower pencil and watercolour on gesso panel 26 x 18 cm (10 x 7 in)

7 The Good Sheriff gouache on stretched paper 61 x 47 cm (24 x 19 in)

8 Baby Chaos oil on canvas 183 x 122 cm (72 x 48 in)

9 Boy from Carcassonne oil on canvas 152 x 122 cm (60 x 48 in)

10 Forbidden Fruit gouache on panel 30 x 24 cm (12 x 9 in)

11 The Libertines pencil and gouache on panel 40 x 30 cm (16 x 12 in)

12 Acrobats acrylic on canvas 154 x 98 cm (61 x 39 in)

13 Illuminati gouache on paper 148 x 120 cm (58 x 47 in)

14 Two Super Heroes Waiting oil on canvas 122 x 152 cm (48 x 60 in)

15 Farewells and Forget-Me-Nots oil on canvas 122 x 152 cm (48 x 60 in)

16 Frontier Girl pencil and oil on canvas 38 x 43 cm (15 x 17 in)

17 Revolutionaries pencil and gouache on card 60 x 53 cm (24 x 21 in)

18 Wild Boys gouache on paper 95 x 186 cm (37 x 73 in)

19 The Shaman gouache on paper 114 x 157 cm (45 x 62 in)

20 The Changeling gouache on paper 150 x 122 cm (59 x 48 in)

21 Poached Eggs oil on canvas 152 x 122 cm (60 x 48 in)

22 The Sicilians gouache on paper 122 x 92 cm (48 x 36 in)

23 Two Revolutionaries Whittling and Flagging gouache on canvas 84 x 60 cm (33 x 24 in)

24 Les Temps Perdus oil on canvas 122 x 91 cm (48 x 36 in)

25 Omega Man oil on canvas 122 x 91 cm (48 x 36 in)

26 Reading Allowed gouache on paper 148 x 120 cm (58 x 47 in)

27 Three Shepherds & a Wildcat acrylic on canvas 154 x 120 cm (61 x 47 in)

28 Vagrant oil on canvas 48 x 39 cm (19 x 15 in)

BIOGRAPHY

Born – Glasgow 1958Studied Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow 1975-1979Degree and Post Graduate in Fine Art – Glasgow School of Art 1979-83Haldane Trust Award 1982Cargill Scholarship 1983Mark Rothko Memorial Award 1984Residency at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 1986-87I.C.C.F. Best Design Award, New York 1993Lord Provost Gold Medal from City of Glasgow 1999

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Arts Council of Great BritainLibrary of Congress, Washington, U.S.A.Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, PortugalMuseum of Modern Art, New York, U.S.A.Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, U.S.A.Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonKelvingrove Art Gallery, GlasgowMetropolitan Museum, New York, U.S.A.Walker Art Gallery, LiverpoolSouthampton City Art Gallery, SouthamptonScottish National Gallery of Modern Art, EdinburghTate Gallery, LondonUniversity of LiverpoolStrathclyde University, GlasgowDundee Art Gallery, DundeeAberdeen Art Gallery, AberdeenThe British CouncilMiddlesbrough Art Gallery, MiddlesbroughThe Glasgow Collection, GlasgowSetagaya Museum, Tokyo, JapanNew York Public Library, New York, U.S.A.Scottish Arts CouncilMcLaurin Art Gallery, AyrLaing Art Gallery, NewcastleGlasgow UniversityGallery of Modern Art, GlasgowWhitworth Art Gallery, ManchesterScottish National Portrait Gallery, EdinburghCity Arts Centre, EdinburghWolverhampton Art Gallery, WolverhamptonYale Centre for British Art, New Haven, U.S.A.The British Museum, LondonThe Glasgow (Design) Collection, GlasgowPallant House Gallery, ChichesterMcManus Art Galleries, Dundee

COMMISSIONS and PROJECTS

1987-90 Designed series of 5 covers for Heinemann Press, African Writers series.1990 Designed Tapestry “Through the Garden Wall” for Edinburgh Tapestry Co.1992 Lux Europa. Design of 12 Structures using steel, painted aluminium and neon for Princes Street, Edinburgh, to coincide with the European Summit.1993 Designed Print for the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art -Scotrail. Designed the “Dynasty Series” - 6 limited edition rugs for the Edinburgh Tapestry Co. Received the I.C.C.F. Best Design Award in New York.1994 “A Midsummer Nights Dream” - Folio of 6 Lithos, for the Barbican, London.1995 Painting for Glasgow’s Royal International Concert Hall. Triple Portrait for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Illustrated “The Sixth Station” by George Mackay Brown, for Clarion Publishing. Co-Curator of Bad Blood, an exhibition for The Glasgow Print Studio Gallery. (Winner of the Paper Boat Award.) 1995-6 Two Paintings for Liverpool Cathedral, for the Jerusalem Trust. Middlesbrough Projects: Design of Mosaic - Public Furniture - Steel Frieze - 12 Flags - Sculpture Court - 6 Windows - Neon Installation.1996 Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art - Design of Cafe - Murals - Light Boxes - Stained Glass - Neon Pieces. Designed Wallpaper for Glasgow Design Festival. Artwork for films “ The Slab Boys” and “Beethoven”.1997-8 Painting for Art in Hospitals (Scotland).1998 Awarded Hamilton Town Square Millennium Tower Project.1999 Completion of Hamilton Tower and Mosaic. Floor Design for Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art. Homes For The Future - City of Architecture and Design. Interior and Product Design. “Stations of the Cross” for Bury St. Edmunds Art Gallery.2000 Design of sculptural platform for the Scottish National Galleries at the Edinburgh Festival. Concept Development for Community Education and Arts Centre for Saltcoats, North Ayrshire Council. Etched Glass Doors for Private Dwelling. Curator for Northern Star, an exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.2000-1 Editioned Series of Rugs for Stoddard International. 2001 Interior for Jazz Club, Lochwinnoch Music Festival. Interior Design and Large Etched Glass Window for Secondary School. North Lanarkshire Arts and Education Department, North Lanarkshire Council.2000-2 Multi-storey Parking and Public Square, Design for Dundee City Council.2003-4 Designs for railings for Glasgow Green. Installed May 2004. 2007 Theatre – (Writer and set design) GBH or (The Girl the Boy & the Hag) commissioned by OranMor. Performed at OranMor, Glasgow and Queens Hall, Edinburgh Festival Book launch of GBH at Edinburgh Festival.2009 La Befana, (Writer and set design and artistic director) theatre production commissioned by OranMor. Music by Gordon Rigby. Painting commission “The Homecoming”2010 Stone, (Writer) theatre production commissioned by Glasgow University, Music by Gordon Rigby.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2011 108 Gallery, Harrowgate Merston Gallery, Chichester2010 Gerber Fine Art, Glasgow2009 New work, Robert Sandelson Gallery, London

Retrospective, 108 Fine Art, Harrogate. Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh.

2008 Invited Artist, Pittenweem Arts Festival.2007 Scenes of the Passion, prints by Albrecht Durer and Adrian Wiszniewski, Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Glasgow Print Studio, Glasgow. Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh. Gerber Fine Art, Glasgow.2005 Henshelwood Gallery, Newcastle. Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, Glasgow Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh.2003 Netherlandische, Festival Exhibition, Edinburgh Gallery.2002 Dream On, Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, Glasgow1999 Last Painting Exhibition, Edinburgh Festival Well Hung, Galerie Fortlaan 17, Ghent, Belgium No Futurism, Myles Meehan Gallery, Darlington1998 E-Pix, Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, Glasgow Excellent, The Fringe Gallery, Castlemilk1997 Lost in Space, Boukamel Gallery, London Retrospective at t’Elzenveld, Sint-Jorispand, Antwerpen, Belgium A Man Tied Up In His Own Composition, Galerie Fortlaan 17, Ghent, Belgium1996 A Man Tied Up In His Own Composition, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh Festival Show New Leaf, Northern Print Studio, North Shields, England1995 Rex Irwin Gallery, Sydney, Australia1994 A Midsummer Nights Dream, Barbican Centre, London1993 Sex and Matisse, Glasgow Print Studio, Glasgow and Hunt Jennings Gallery, London This Happy Void, Galerie Fortlaan 17, Ghent, Belgium1992 Empty Vessels I&II, William Jackson Gallery, London Dynasty Series, Bar 10, Glasgow1991 The Secret Garden, Installation, Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow Twelve Stations, Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno, Wales and Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum New Work, Galerie Fortlaan 17, Ghent, Belgium1990 Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London Gallery Aries, Tokyo, Japan Retrospective, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh1989 Rex Irwin Gallery, Sydney,Australia Galerie Fortlaan 17, Ghent, Belgium1988 Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London Glasgow Print Studio Gallery1987 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool1986 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool1985 Nicola Jacobs Gallery, London1984 A.I.R. Gallery, London Compass Gallery, Glasgow

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2012 2012 APPOINTMENT CALENDAR, M.O.M.A. NEW YORK.2010 STONE, WORDS AND IMAGES BY ADRIAN WISZNIEWSKI, GLASGOW UNIVERSITY. 2007 G.B.H. WORDS AND IMAGES BY ADRIAN WISZNIEWSKI, GLASGOW PRINT STUDIO.2006 BRITISH ART, SOUTHBANK PUBLISHING.2000 SCOTTISH ART, WORLD OF ART SERIES, THAMES AND HUDSON2000 SCOTTISH ART 1460-2000, MAINSTREAM PUBLISHING1998 IWATE ART FESTIVAL U.K. 98, BRITISH COUNCIL, JAPAN1996 GALLERY OF MODERN ART, GLASGOW, SCALA BOOKS1996 A MAN TIED UP IN HIS OWN COMPOSITION, TALBOT RICE1995 CONTEMPORARY BRITISH ART IN PRINT, PARAGON PRESS 1994 SCOTTISH ART IN THE 20TH CENTURY, MAINSTREAM1994 THE WALKER ART GALLERY, LIVERPOOL, SCALA BOOKS1994 AN AMERICAN PASSION, GLASGOW MUSEUMS AND ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART1994 SUMMERS COLLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY BRITISH PAINTING1993 THE BIGGER PICTURE, B.B.C. BOOKS1992 SCOTTISH BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY, CHAMBERS1992 CONTEMPORARY PAINTING IN SCOTLAND, CRAFTSMAN HOUSE1991 DRAWING TODAY, PHIADON PRESS1990 SCOTTISH PAINTING 1831 TO THE PRESENT, STUDIO VISTA1990 ADRIAN WISZNIEWSKI, FRUITMARKET GALLERY1990 SCOTTISH ART SINCE 1900, S.N.G.M.A.1990 ART IN THE 80’S, PHIADON PRESS1990 BRITISH ART, BRITISH COUNCIL JAPAN1989 CRIES AND WHISPERS, BRITISH COUNCIL AUSTRALIA1989 PROSPECT 89, FRANKFURTER KUNSTVEREIN1988 THE NEW BRITISH PAINTING, CINCINNATI CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTRE1987 BRITISH ART SINCE 1980, BRITISH COUNCIL STOCKHOLM1987 ADRIAN WISZNIEWSKI, WALKER ART GALLERY LIVERPOOL1987 THE VIGOROUS IMAGINATION, S.N.G.M.A.1986 BRITISH ART SINCE 1900, WORLD OF ART SERIES, THAMES AND HUDSON1986 THE NEW IMAGE, PHIADON PRESS1985 NEW IMAGE GLASGOW, THIRD EYE PUBLICATIONS1984 THE BRITISH ART SHOW, ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT

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