Publication date: 13.11.2023

Sunrise, painted in 1965, combines the artist’s spiritual and artistic interests. In it, the sacred and the profane meet – the very essence of Nowosielski’s work. The work depicts a landscape reduced to abstraction, composed in the manner characteristic of sacred icons. In keeping with the convention of depicting the beauty of nature, it is composed of geometric figures and bright colours. Conventional yet clear, the painting conveys the essence of a day awakening to life. The sun, surrounded by a radiant halo, is placed at the centre of the composition, like the figures of saints in icons, and thus becomes a sacred entity. On the sides, in separate geometric shapes that create colourful planes, fragments of the landscape and the sun can be seen in four different aspects. Similar to the non-stereotypical representation of sunrise and sanctity, the theme of abstraction resonates throughout the painting. But it’s not just about the aesthetic play of juxtaposed geometric forms. For this artist, abstraction refers above all to the supreme being, to transcendence, the emanation of which is light. The golden halo and the golden background are the counterpart of this brightness, the action of the divine factor in the icon. The artist, deeply rooted in religious art, reinterprets the sacred image in the language of contemporary art.