#biala

Biala, Owl, ca. 1960-1965, lithograph on paper, image: 21 3⁄4 x 26 in. (55.2 x 66.0 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Arnold Elser

Janice Biala (aka Brustlein)

American (born Poland), (1903–2000)

Despite her love of Paris, Biala never gave up her United States citizenship. She was at home everywhere. ''I never have the feeling of nationality or roots,'' she once said. ''I always had the feeling that I belong where my easel is.''

BIALA

The series BIALA has a geometrical guideline and its features were taken from urban architecture. The pictures don’t portray entire buildings, but just a chosen part of the facades, to accentuate the symmetry and modular geometry of the structures. While placing a game of shapes and colors in foreground, the artist is able to deprive the buildiungs of their utilitarian residential function.Large urban structures tend to suffocate personal subjectivity into anonymity, however in the series this risk seems likely to be avoided. Gustav places a single human being at the intersection of the diagonals, giving it a physical and symbolic centrality. The subject gives us the impression to be a heroic inhabitant of an almost hostile world. 

Bielsko Biała 12/2016