Margrit Lewczuk’s Angels
The New York Studio School presented Margrit Lewczuk: Angels January 28 through March 3, 2018
Lewczuk reconfigures the visual making of the angel in her latest exhibition Angels at the New York Studio School. As angels lead us through our spiritual paths, what Lewczuk does is seize the angel in presence and brings it through the exhibition for all to see. Creative designation of artist now plays a celestial role in representing what the human eye interprets as divine, in the highest power.
Presenting angels of all forms, their replicated images become our human perceptions of heavenly bodies. The outline of angel consistent in each of her works, the curved outline figure stands upright with wings extended out, as if the angel descends down to accept worship.
These angels do not radiate the traditional color scheme. Instead they radiate in blue, green, silver, red and purple. The works vary in sizes small and large. In Lewczuk’s replication, the angel is both a bearing and overbearing figure.
Within the following room, the angel presides once again, this time under the medium of light. Every two minutes the lights above turn off and the angelic pieces are released with a ghastly glow. Transformed from its two dimensional casing to a now illusive three dimensionality, the outline of angel disappears. Now an enlarged form, the angel reminds us of their holy power. The once light blue background of the angel becomes dark blue, and it’s whitened circular forms appear as if revealing its internal biological structure. The light blue angel now becomes dark and the yellow now golden.
The light acts like a vessel opening our eyes to its contents. With the bright lights filling the room, the angels appear as blueprints to be filled in. With the closing of the lights, darkness fills in the gaps.
As the detailing of their outlines become more apparent, there becomes an overall dramatization of the figure. The once lit silver scrawls and white geometric forms that protrude from the outline of the angel merge in the darkness and expand to form its featherlike wings.
It is said that angels present themselves in the most divine ways. Their presence is meant to signify heavenly presence from above. A transporter of messages, an angel moves through both our spiritual and mortal realms. A figure of reflection, humility and mortality, Earth becomes the meeting grounds of angels and mortals.
Accompanying the exhibition was a poetry reading by the Brooklyn Rail. The poems shared were inspired by the works and experiences evoked from Lewczuk’s Angels.
Here are snippets of the poems that most resonate with the theme of angel, within the context of life and death.
“Prospect of dying scares us all but history goes on”
“The angels are among us, around us, and you feel that”
It is in the defining of angels that the thought of presence and permanence feel significant. Inspiration arises from our history in the making. It resides in our reflections of a time past, revelations for the future and hopes in the present. Lewczuk proves that the context for the angel relates farther than religion. The role of angel is not solely spiritual, but physical. As our physical bodies crowd the room to hear the words of poets, our presence along with the angel, descend upon our being.
The outline of the angel invokes the figure of us all.
Margrit Lewczuk’s Angels
Written by Jasmine Boothe