Publication date: 13.11.2023

In the pulsating red painting, Nowosielski treats nudity in a unique way, which, while exuding eroticism, can transport us into the realm of the sacred. The title invites us to see a mirror in the round object resting on a shelf. What we see in it is not, as we might expect, a naked body, but the reflection of light coming from the viewer’s side, as if it were a reflection of the real world. The canvas displays Nowosielski’s characteristic manual geometrization of forms, while the artist himself treated colour as a purely aesthetic matter, favouring certain combinations at different times. We witness a harmonious combination of abstraction and figuration, modernity and centuries-old tradition. It is also a unique meeting of Eastern and Western cultures. The artist himself treats the art of painting as sacred, hence his interest and inspiration in the aesthetics and philosophy of the icon. As he recalls, icons were the first works of art he saw in the original, but it was contemporary art that allowed him to understand and, above all, feel them.