Studio Visit // Jowita Wyszomirska

If you were to walk by MICA’s Stu­dio Cen­ter on North Avenue (close to what I am told is the slow­est McDon­ald’s in the world) dur­ing the month of Jan­u­ary, then you most like­ly saw the work of Jowi­ta Wys­zomirs­ka through the win­dow of MICA’s Cura­to­r­i­al Stud­ies gallery, The Tem­po­rary. Three site-spe­cif­ic instal­la­tions were fea­tured in her solo show, Ten­u­ous Con­nec­tion. I met Jowi­ta in her stu­dio that is housed in School 33, an art space in down­town Bal­ti­more. The space itself has won­der­ful views of the city and a lot of room for her and her hus­band to share their work space. 

Jow­ita’s recent endeav­ors take shape in instal­la­tions (such as the one in her stu­dio) and draw­ings. Pen, gouache, and tape are all used to cre­ate intri­cate works that are metic­u­lous yet min­i­mal in detail. Cit­ing archi­tec­ture and maps as inspi­ra­tion, a recent set of draw­ings reflect the routes of the Pur­ple Line, a bus line of the Charm City Cir­cu­la­tor in Baltimore. 

It was nice to see the pro­gres­sion that Jow­ita’s work has tak­en. In a rel­a­tive­ly short peri­od of time, her work went from three dimen­sion­al paint­ings of build­ings, to a focus on the fold­ed forms of those build­ings, to the instal­la­tion on the wall. Always want­i­ng to chal­lenge her­self, Jowi­ta told me it was to fueled by the desire to speed up her work­ing process. Tape is faster than paint — more imme­di­ate results and exer­cis­es ideas quickly. 

Below: An exam­ple of the box­es Jowi­ta made after paint­ing archi­tec­ture. Image via web­site.

Over­all, I liked Jow­ita’s way of work­ing jux­ta­posed with the result of her work (instal­la­tions, specf­i­cal­ly). Although she tends not to sketch before she starts work­ing, her years of being an exhi­bi­tion fab­ri­ca­tor have made her process-ori­ent­ed and it seems to have keep her attuned to refin­ing her artis­tic process. So far, this has been work­ing — her work con­tin­ues to move on an inter­est­ing path of abstract­ed obser­va­tions. I’ll be excit­ed to see the work she has com­ing up for an exhi­bi­tion in June, and how it is a con­tin­u­a­tion of where she is work­ing now.

Thanks Jowi­ta!