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Jarosław Modzelewski, “Level the Fence (Wyrównać płot)”, 1992 – poetic synthesis of everyday life
Jarosław Modzelewski, “Level the Fence (Wyrównać płot)”, 1992 is an oil painting that encapsulates the artist’s distinctive style, in which prosaic everyday scenes are transformed into symbolic signs. Using radically simplified forms and flat colour fields, Modzelewski creates a composition based on a primary triad of colours: intense red, saturated yellow and dominant blue.
Description – a simple action as a visual emblem
The lower part of the canvas is filled with a dark, almost black ground. Above it stretches a yellow fence, interrupted at the centre by a blue panel. Against this blue surface stands a simplified human figure, engaged in the act of straightening the fence.
The figure is painted in tones close to the blue of the fence and thus appears to merge with the object. Individuality seems to dissolve in the performed activity; the person becomes almost one with the material he is working on. This shift from psychological portrait to the poetry of action is characteristic of Jarosław Modzelewski’s painting.
Colour – red, yellow and blue as structural elements
The composition relies on a triad of basic colours. A large red architectural block occupies the upper zone of the painting, set against a darker, muted sky. The blue of the fence and the figure acts as a binding element, linking the realms of object, human and sky.
The yellow strip of the fence introduces an earthy, grounded note, anchoring the scene in everyday reality. The contrast of these three colours – red, yellow and blue – gives the work clarity, rhythm and emotional resonance, despite the deliberate simplicity of forms.
Architecture and mood – a mysterious red block
Above the scene of manual labour, a stepped red building rises, monumental and enigmatic. Its blocky silhouette against the darkened sky creates a mysterious, slightly unsettling atmosphere. The architecture functions not so much as a real house, but as a symbolic backdrop, an anonymous fragment of the urban landscape.
Through the precise balance of rectangles, colour planes and the lone figure, Modzelewski achieves what may be called a “poetic synthesis”: a minimal means generating a maximum of interpretative depth.
Significance of “Level the Fence”
“Level the Fence” is not merely a record of a mundane activity. It is a visual meditation on labour, identity and the relationship between man and his surroundings. The blue figure, almost disappearing into the painted surface, suggests a condition in which the self is absorbed by the world of things and tasks.
For collectors and institutions interested in Polish contemporary painting and the work of Jarosław Modzelewski – a key member of the legendary group Gruppa – this painting is a prime example of how the artist turns everyday situations into quiet, melancholic icons of modern life.
Keywords: Jarosław Modzelewski Level the Fence, Wyrównać płot painting, Polish contemporary art, Gruppa, everyday life iconography, simplified flat colour painting.
