Tamara Berdowska (1962), WITHOUT TITLE, 2018.

oil/canvas, ¶ 120 cm
signed, dated and described on the back: Tamara Berdowska | oil | 2018

Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, where she received her diploma in the studio of Prof. Janina Kraupe-Świderska in 1990. The artist represents the geometric abstraction current. Since 2000, she has participated in open-air workshops organized by Bożena Kowalska for Artists using the Language of Geometry. In her painting, she uses color and light in such a way that she achieves the effect of pulsation of the picture surface. She also creates relief paintings and spatial drawings. In Berdowska's work, blue has dominated since her thesis. Even the appendix to her diploma, made in the Animated Film studio at the Department of Graphics, is a film about a monster devouring blue! Blue in Berdowska's work has a symbolic function, which is not at all obvious in the case of abstract painting, based on optical illusion.

The presented painting in the form of a tonneau has the value of a meditative object. This impression is deepened by the colors but also by the form of the sub-painting itself. The gaze is focused in the center, or rather is drawn through it. The artist believes that: "Creating is about removing the veil, discovering the preimage. At the same time, creation is a process without a satisfying end: "Creativity is the pursuit of perfection, which one never achieves, to define and touch something that is only intuited," says Berdowska. Isn't the use of a circle shape, close to the perfection of a sphere, an attempt to get closer to the unattainable? However, this is a need that is not new. In her square compositions, the artist relied on symmetrical arrangements, often emphasizing the focal point of the composition. The eyes of "Vortexes" also fell in the center. In diptychs, she built symmetry on the principle of mirroring a larger arrangement. In the painting on display, Berdowska achieved depth by purely painterly means on a flat surface - a gradual gradation of blue - from a color-saturated center, through a circle emanating white light, to return to blue at the periphery.