When the Colour becomes Air  

Aleksandra Jachtoma was born in 1932. Her life is linked to Warsaw, where she completed her artistic studies, made her debut here, and participated in numerous individual and collective exhibitions, gaining a well-deserved position in the world of Polish visual arts. She was an active member of the Association of Polish Visual Artists, and in the 1970s she participated in memorable open-air workshops in Osieki, gathering the most outstanding Polish artists of the second half of the 20th century. In the 80s and 90s she took part in plein-air workshops devoted to geometric art organized in Białowieża and Okuninka. She is a laureate of awards and distinctions, including the most prestigious award for Polish painters - the Jan Cybis Prize for 2003.
Aleksandra Jachtoma's painting is today seen through the prism of works created in the last 4 decades. The reason for this is the fact that the paintings from this period are best known and commented on by art critics and art historians, but also most often referred to by the artist herself. They are by far the dominant body of works shown at her individual exhibitions and are also selected by curators for group exhibitions (e.g. Beyond Cybis, Zachęta 2019). These are mostly monochromatic paintings with a slight intervention, consisting of a painted frame on the edges of a stretcher canvas, or on barely noticeable colour transitions, making the paintings provoke thinking about them through colour and referring them to the tradition of painting that fills the picture field with colourful spots. For many they are combined with the work of minimalist or op-art painters. They provoke imagination and thoughts about light. For insightful viewers, despite a certain affinity of her work with the artists of the above mentioned directions, the originality of Aleksandra Jachtoma's works is easily grasped and appreciated. The colour subtlety, the sensuality associated with the format of the pictures, the manner of oil paint application without any marks, the harmonious change of the palette - all these make her pictures ethereal, yet firmly embedded in the memory. The selection of works from this period constitutes the body of the exhibition at the Szydłowski Gallery.
For the sake of completeness, we would also like to make the audience interested in the painting by the artist from previous periods of her work. Thus, we have built counterpoints in the form of paintings from earlier years that show the path she has travelled, and at the same time prove her extraordinary colour sensibility and pictorial talent.