Gallery 401

Edward Bielejec

Artist’s Statement

My work is figurative, yet I do not always include the figure. What I create is an awkward space that the figure might exist in; one that is a reflection of our own. Through a dialectic dualism of representation / abstraction, confined / expansive space, muted / vibrant colors, painted from / drawn line, realism / conceptualism, a tightrope balances seemingly divergent aspects of painting and our world.

My work draws heavily on art history and my own personal experience; reading into the past to interpret the present. The process is exposed for the viewer to see, like the worn frescos of the early Italian Renaissance. Through scarring, the work reveals a level of finish that both exposes the entire process and involves the viewer in the completion of the work.

The images are not portraits per se; they are stand-ins. If the figures bare a resemblance to me, (like elusive self-portraits) they are not, yet each contains a part of me. The figures come from within and speak to the viewer through similar experiences that we share. They are a reflection of the self, but as the other, as if in a mirror darkly. My work requires the viewer to pause and contemplate, ultimately to look into oneself. It is a self that is beyond the accidents of time and place, one which is in need of affirmation in contemporary art. Too often today, this need for individuality is expressed by superficial attempts to create an identity. Accordingly, my work is related to the recognition of self, beyond. This recognition of self in the contemporary mindset is the individual self that is isolated, recognized, affirmed or negated.

The assertion of the figurative as a vehicle of expression in my painting is an artistic decision, but beyond that it is a social/psychological statement, a redefinition of the parameters that condition what we see and ultimately look for.

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