Eye and Image Andrzej Kalina’s Drawn Army consists of coloured rectangles and steel-grey square structures. It is a curious event and collision – a meeting of ephemeral, colourful drawing sensations with the hard labor of a graphic artist’s workshop. Some cards here, time boxes made of etched plates there. Seemingly everything comes from the same land yet leads thoughts in different directions. Image researchers have found that a person looking at a painting first looks for… eyes. When they see them, the brain is relieved to focus on the look. The meeting of the viewer’s eyes with the eyes in the painting has an interesting course. An avalanche of recollections and associations is set in motion. The image looks, so it is alive. And if it is, surely something will happen…? An eye for an eye… Somewhere deep in the construction of our subconscious lies the expectation that we understand this look, that we catch what’s going on, that we will sense what it is all about. Because, after all, in looking at a painting in this way lies the essence of our fascination with art: we spend all our lives looking for a relation with this “other”, different look. Andrzej Kalina told me that he started to draw during the Covid-19 pandemic. Not to sculpt, not to paint, not to build, but to draw. A drawing, an image, became his interlocutor, a companion, a perverse and forgetful confidant, a joker and a serious listener. Drawings by outstanding artists have an interesting property – they disclose what we do not usually see. They reveal phenomena, mechanisms, forms, colours that at first seem contrived, imaginary, unreal. Over time, new worlds and new signs emerge from these strange states of seeing unseen phenomena very clearly. Andrzej Kalina has always been, and still is this kind of artist who unveils… reveals…, discovers… and, seemingly mocking the process, surprises with the seriousness of the situation. This time he drew a treatise on the therapy for loneliness. A visual poem about sadness in all possible colours. Because, after all, pink sadness is very different from the yellow one. Sometimes the complement of states (red-green) allows to keep  a balance, the brain knows how to play a trick and confuse the companion (yellow-blue). Andrzej’s drawn creations have different moods. But it is an army that is very clever and well organised. No line escapes, no colour jumps out. We will encounter gazes that are calm and sleepy, curious and confused, hungry and satiated, rapturous and defiant. At times, it is frightening to look at these drawings. After all, they may materialise or become reality, they can “become” and be, and want, and need, until shivers run down the skin, and yet we go on looking, pretending to be brave. They can “arise” – i.e. turn a look into a movement. They can listen for hints from afar, turn into high-frequency waves and then pierce the senses and even knock them down with a tremor. There are no jokes here. Andrzej Kalina has drawn  a multicoloured Diary of a Time of Plague. This Diary looks at us, not caring that we are staring back… But Andrzej didn't stop there. He also constructed Squares of Time – matrices of absence. From etched plates, mirrors, glass, imprints of absent shapes and photographs. As if the inverse of the looking drawings – blind traces reinforced by the annihilation of the graphics. Illusions, reflexes, reflections – all untrue! What you see is not there, yet it is. And this exhibition’s title… Very telling. Author: Dorota Folga-Januszewska Author's guided tour: December 15, 2023 at 15:00-17:00Graphic design: Antonina KonopelskaExhibition organizers: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, National Center for Culture