NATURE | lou jaworski

AEON 001–003 (2024) are UV pigment prints on semi-transparent stainless steel mesh. Depending on the incidence of light, the shine and transparency of the metal mesh intensively stimulate the eye's perceptual mechanisms. Jaworski uses this effect to depict cloud formations that seem to float in the pictorial space like a hologram. AEON 001–003 thus appears as a digital play of light and shadow, barely tangible, between flat image and expansion into the spatial dimension. The dramatic colors of the clouds against the black background recall the chiaroscuro technique of Italian painting. 

The installation NUMBERS (2024) consists of nine 3D-printed sculptural components of a superhumanly large Pinocchio figure. In the original Italian story, Geppetto carves a marionette-like puppet out of a talking tree trunk, which then comes to life. Jaworski's version is a digital appropriation of the literary figure. In the 3D printing process, the individual parts are produced separately, which is reflected in the spatial installation. However, the fragments are mentally assembled into a complete, recognizable body. In its effect, the figure is at once uncanny and lifeless, as well as playful. Personifying the lie, it questions the independence of narratives, but also, through its material aesthetics, the trustworthiness of new technological developments. 

NUMBERS not only challenges conventional proportions, but connects to the cosmic whole through the eyes of the headpiece made of meteorite slices. They are pieces of an approximately 4.7 billion year old iron meteorite found in the Altai Mountains of China and have a typical crystalline structure. The figure was not assigned a color in the 3D program and also presents itself in printed, physical form as a digital model; at the same time, the gray coloring underscores its lifelessness and turns it into a projection surface for an abstract idea.

The special nature of the material adds a level of meaning to the perception of the prints that transcends the work. The cosmological phenomenon of meteor showers is based on something mystical, which in SIKHOTE ALIN is combined with the order created by individuals in the form of a receipt, thus questioning the role of human beings in relation to the timeless cosmos that surrounds them. At the same time, it is a reflection on the value of artistic labor and our relationship to nature, as well as the claims of ownership associated with it. 

The advent of neon lighting, especially in public buildings and in the cityscape, had an impact on the perception of spaces and their design through a blanket of colored lettering. The perceptual influence of neon on everyday life has been used by artists in their creative processes and is part of a long material-aesthetic tradition. Jaworski refers to this and transfers the serial industrial product of the fluorescent tube back into the most traditional sculptural material, stone, creating a perceptive ambivalence between materiality, value, and industrial progress.

The wall works of the series MURIEL combine Jaworski's explorations of marble, printing technique and painting: on the marbled surface of the stone slabs, a grid of lines run from light to dark. This creates an optical interference in which the print and the grain of the stone overlap, opening a new layer on the "canvas" that seems to suggest depth. Thus, marble and stone as a traditionally sculptural material is not only the canvas, but at the same time the subject matter of the picture. Lou Jaworski deals intensively with mechanisms of perception, grid structures and the definition of the image, as well as their reproducibility. 

Photo: Dirk Tacke

The sculpture ZE (2023) consists of two UV pigment prints on stainless steel mesh, which are stretched into an architectural structure made of server rack components. The semi-transparent prints are laid out in a line-shaped grid and change intensively depending on the incidence of light and stimulate the eye's perception mechanisms. ZE appears like a digital game of light and shadow, barely tangible, between a flat image and an expansion in spatial dimensions. The supporting structure is composed of a modular system that unfolds like a screen in the room and whose components come from large server racks designed to store public and private data. 

Photo: Dirk Tacke

X LIGHT is reminiscent of a framed painting due to its vertical format and the bordering of the metal plate with strips. In a minimalist formal language, the slightly reflective surface of the metal unfolds a cool, painterly quality that is amplified by movements in the surrounding space. In his works, Jaworski repeatedly addresses the definition of the concept of the image by combining different materials and allowing painterly and sculptural elements to flow into one another.

Photo: Dirk Tacke

Two groups of oversized crystals of white marble are spread out in the room, joining together to form the sculptures JET 001 (2022) and JET 003 (2022), from whose center an energetic force field seems to emanate. Through the distortion of size, they are reminiscent of 3D models, scalable in dimension and shape, transforming the gallery into a semi-digital space in which unknown forces unfold. Detached from the environment, they are quotations of natural conditions, artificial replicas of geological structures, and are reminiscent of spiritual practices in which crystals are said to have healing and protective effects, which are also shared by spiritual web communities. 


Photo: Dirk Tacke

Lou Jaworski deals intensively with mechanisms of perception, grid structures and the definition of the image, as well as their reproducibility. Applied to newsprint in previous works, he now transfers the common reproduction technique of halftone printing to stone slabs, setting the technology designed for reproducibility in a state of timelessness.

Photo: Dirk Tacke

Lou Jaworski’s minimalist geometric work HYPATIA (2020) consists of a combination of ferrite magnets built into an architectural structure. The interplay of artificially created and engaged materials, all utilized in modern technologies and industries are enhanced by the interaction between material autonomy, ephemeral abstraction and physical laws. In the center of the work, a magnetic plate is balanced by the material power of attraction and partially made to float.

Photo: Studio Lou Jaworski

AGMA WHITE (2021) is part of a new modular series of works by Lou Jaworski, in which works can be presented as wall or floor installations. The multi-part relief-like arrangements assemble is formed of ferrite magnetic plates, neon tubes, and parts of server racks originally utilized to store public and private data at a central Internet hub in Frankfurt am Main. 

Photo: Dirk Tacke

The work AIRLINES (2020) is a multi-component floor installation consisting of two steel grids and corresponding magnetic objects. Lou Jaworski uses the grid to expand the exhibition space by an additional level. AIRLINES explores the linear relationships between objects in space and their relationship to the viewer's location. The work almost seems to float, at the same time referring to the microcosm as well as to the macrocosm: on the one hand, the structure appears like an enlargement and visualization of energetic fields normally imperceptible to humans; on the other hand, AIRLINES is reminiscent of an architectural landscape from a bird's eye perspective, in which the individual elements are placed in strict order to one another. The grid, a recurring base element in Jaworski's work, becomes a space to be experienced, reminiscent of digital renderings, but also a means to order individual sculptural elements. 

Photo: Dirk Tacke

In his offset print SUNDAY (2020) on newsprint, Lou Jaworski reflects intensively on the mechanisms of perception, grid structures and the definition of the term "image". In the newspaper printing method used in halftone raster, the impression of color tone values and gray levels of images is achieved through a specific arrangement of raster points. Jaworski uses this process to create a gradient from dark to light on the New York Times paper. In it, the distances between the small black dots to the center of the picture increase until the arrangement is reversed, and the white spaces become dots. This creates a moirée effect, an optical interference in which two grids overlap and the image begins to flicker. Upon closer inspection, this structure appears abstract and synthetic, while from a distance a uniform overall picture emerges. The course of the pressure points – which can suggest light and shadow – creates a hinted horizonal line, leading the viewer to habitually read the work as a landscape picture. Jaworski questions with SUNDAY the classic concept of the picture by making the technical requirements of the picture into its actual content, thus quoting the genre of the landscape picture in an abstract way.

Photo: Dirk Tacke