My Journey to the Sun with Hanna Orzechowska

“During this period, I realize a need that has long resided within me, not only to observe the phenomena of nature, but also the necessity to express my anxieties and feelings through art, to define myself through painting and creative activity, and the desire to influence the viewer’s imagination by evoking similar thoughts, associations, images, and related feelings”.^[1]

Hanna Orzechowska, 1945, courtesy of Agata Siecińska 

This text describes my encounter with the work of Hanna Orzechowska, particularly with works depicting the sun, including a series of watercolors, the collage Micro-macro Divagations, and a fabric depicting fifteen gray-white suns. All works were presented at the exhibition Looking into the Sun. Hanna Orzechowska at Studio Gallery in Warsaw.

This topic interests me particularly in the context of developing and visualizing reality expanded by its extrasensory aspects. I perceive this realm as a network^[2]. It connects everything that exists, has ever existed, and will exist beyond historical time and beyond space in a geographical sense. Seeking new perspectives for interpreting Hanna Orzechowska’s works, I pay attention to their affirmative character and the potential for intergenerational coexistence, fueling the current of herstory.

I open my eyes…
And I feel like Captain Pirx during a mad bath: “At first, the darkness in which he rested, or rather, which he himself was, swarmed with faint flickers of circles floating on the edge of his field of vision, virtually lightless, hazily misty. He moved his eyeballs he felt that movement, and it comforted him. But strangely, after a few movements, even his eyes slipped out of his control”^[3].

I saw nothing and felt nothing. I surrendered to suspension and the reset of my senses. I existed in a world beyond the senses, although I had no proof of it. The sense of body and time vanished. In such circumstances, it was difficult to wait for anything. Was I dreaming, or had my mind simply drifted far away while painting the picture? A tiny spark of self-awareness offered me only the unknown. I hear a quiet pssst. I see a pearly hatch floating above my head. It’s a capsule. Now I see that I was submerged in liquid the whole time. I didn’t feel it because it has the temperature of my body. I exit the capsule. I realised that I am on the deck of a ship. Its interior is minimalistic. It is powered and operated in a way that exceeds my understanding of its quantum mechanics. On a small, crystal table that stands by the capsule, I notice a little piece of paper. I look closely. It is written with a pencil: “We’re flying to the sun or even further. Hanka.” Above her name, I see a simple drawing of the sun. It was smiling at me.

The presentation of Hanna Orzechowska’s works at the Studio Gallery in Warsaw is dedicated to her artistic output from the mid-1940s to 1979. It expands on what I saw at the Hanna Orzechowska. In Relation exhibition at the Arton Foundation^[4] At Studio Gallery, there are showcased drawings, watercolors, painted collages, fabrics, as well as a documentary annex. Works, photos, and other materials were provided by the artist’s daughter, Agata Siecińska.

The exhibition curator, Luiza Nader, divided the show into two parts. On the lower floor of the gallery, there are, among others, afterimage-like depictions of the sun, forming under closed eyelids; on the upper floor, we encounter the sun observed during the day. “Its light blinds. The sun in this part of the exhibition, in Orzechowska’s works, takes on a grey or black colour, becoming a dark mirror.”^[5]

Orzechowska was born on January 1, 1923, in Warsaw. In 1951, she obtained a diploma from the Faculty of Graphics, and in 1952, a diploma from the Faculty of Textile at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Łódź. From 1953 to 1955, she continued her studies at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts at the Faculty of Painting. From 1955 to 1958, she worked at the Institute of Industrial Design as a fabric print designer. In 1961, she went on a scholarship from the French government and the Ministry of Culture and Art to France. From 1957, she lectured at the Faculty of Textile at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Łódź.^[6] In the same year, she married Wojciech Sieciski. On November 6, 1960, her daughter, Agata Sieciska, was born.

I stopped looking at the series of watercolors from 1948 depicting the sun. It comprises sixteen works, sized 21 × 29 cm and 25 × 35 cm. Twelve of them were damaged by fire in the artist’s studio in 1979. The works were created during a pleinair in Nowa Wieś in Poland, where Orzechowska was accompanied by Władysław Strzemiski.

Entanglement

In the series of watercolours, the sun is shown above the water, in the center of the composition. Sometimes only its trace appears in various shades of blues and oranges. The works are sketchy, “impressionistic” in nature. Both the technique and the way of painting reflect the ephemeral character of the painted phenomena when the rising or setting sun significantly affects the rapid change of light and, consequently colours.

I imagine that it was a portal for Orzechowska. When she looked at it, she stopped time and thoughts. Maybe she fantasised about traveling into space, asking herself: what would it be like to fly to the sun? What would it be like to meet it? When I look at her watercolours, I feel peace, certainty, and admiration. The works are painted lightly, a bit naively–as if a child would paint it. The freedom, the lack of clearly defined boundaries between forms and shapes, interestingly refers to the wave-particle nature of light.^[7] Its variability and unpredictability inspire Karen Barad to redefine reality, where the ‘in-between’ area is crucial.^[8]

These discoveries direct my thoughts towards thinking what else light can be. Perhaps information, which in the form of solar impulses reaches the earth as transformative splashes of energy, affects not only our biology but also our perception, causing the expansion of our consciousness? It’s also important to think about this in relation to the age of the sun. From the perspective of our lives, it is inhuman. Orzechowska’s suns, painted on the verge of legibility, dissolving into the air and the reflection of water, emphasise its eternal lasting. The cycles of sunrises and sunsets break out of historical time. The spiral of simultaneity connects with the trajectory of the sun speeding through the galaxy. Through Orzechowska’s solar watercolors, I look into the spaces existing “in-between”. It is here that the entanglement^[9] of the, sun and Orzechowska’s art was born.

My attention was drawn particularly to these watercolours in which the sun is depicted as the pupil of an eye, which interestingly connects with its extra-historical. For me, it is an important witness and archive of history, a symbolic “knowing eye”. The sun-eye can be a portal to another dimension – a space beyond the senses associated with the simultaneity of existence. The afterimage of the sun is its symbol, existing thanks to the observer. The necessary condition is the dissolution of the individual “self”. The way Orzechowska paints the sun greatly supports this. Lines smoothly transition into stains. They have no beginning nor end. It is difficult to show a clear boundary between water and sun. The “in-between” space becomes crucial to the wider perspective of viewing reality and its extrasensory aspects.

Relationship with Strzemiński

“Władysław Strzemiński, his personality and friendship, also influenced my path of exploration. His theory of art, philosophy, uncompromising attitude, passion, intelligence, insight, and sensitivity.”^[10]

The juxtaposition of the works of both artists reveals a multidirectional exchange between them.^[11] The comparison of Orzechowska’s solar watercolours^[12] with Władysław Strzemiński’s Afterimage of Light. Woman in a Window (1949) is particularly interesting. He approached the painting of the sun analytically, boldly assuming that with sufficient determination and the application of discoveries from his theory of vision, it would be possible to paint this powerful symbol and the life-giving force in a synthetic manner. The compositional structures mimic the afterimage spots forming on the retina of the eye, visible after closing the eyelids. But these are only mere traces of the real sun. Orzechowska’s sun, on the other hand, refer to the approach of her professor. Studying one of them in particular, we see that the cyan-violet transparent spots with uneven edges, covering the sun’s disk, can be recognised as afterimages. At the same time, Orzechowska’s sun transcends Strzemiński’s approach, introducing the totality of our star.

I imagine that when she was sitting in front of the sun, with her eyes closed, she allowed herself to be consumed by the image of the sun. The result was for her to be melted with its light, energy, and warmth. Luiza Nader, in her opening text for the Orzechowska show, writes about the black sun as the death of subjectivity. For me, similarly, Orzechowska’s suns are a symbol of the connection and dissolution of the individual “self”, reminding us of entanglement and our connections in extrasensory aspects of reality. They create the potential for new forms of coexistence beyond time and space.

The sun is a central symbol in many cultures. Symbolically, it is the father, the giver of life, the masculine aspect (yang), doing, initiation. It is a symbol of avatars, incarnations of spiritually advanced beings, such as Christ or Buddha, but above all, it is the source of life. Interestingly, the sun is now considered carcinogenic, that is, threatening. Perhaps because in its infinite energy potential, it could consume and ultimately destroy us?

Such an ominous, fifteenfold sun appears on the large scale fabric shown at Galeria Studio. The multiplied star directs the viewer towards itself. The forms within it swirl with grey spots. White rays resemble lightning. It also could be a single cell or the nucleus of an electron. The change in scale helps to make the unreal, introducing extrasensory aspects of reality.

Looking at the work Micro-Macro Divagations, I experience déjà vu. Where have I seen this before? The rectangular opening cut into the surface of the work, through which the sun appears (a motif from the fabric), transports me to another dimension. From the catalog of my memories, I recall one. After leaving the deprivation capsule on the ship flying to the sun, I looked through one of the windows. I saw the sun in it. The closer I got, the more clearly I saw the plasma eruptions on its surface. They reminded me of caramel candies fried by my mother on the stove. Its honey mass bubbled and hissed. It was mesmerizing. Just after my mother put it on the plate to cool it down, I put my index finger in it. It was badly burned each time. I tried it several times. Each time forgetting that it is too hot to put my finger in it. The nervous brushstrokes in the upper part of the collage composition with thin strips of jute, lace, and velvet resemble the rays that, from the ship’s deck, spread into a patch of total brilliance. The typical use of materials from different realms and different realities in collage effectively introduces the depth and unpredictability of extrasensory aspects of reality.

Hanna Orzechowska Mikro-makro dywagacje, collage 1968-70,
courtesy of Agata Siecińska 

I saw this collage for the first time at an exhibition at the Arton Foundation. Even then, I noticed the motifs of earthly journeys, including a ticket to Paris, a LOT flyer, and extraterrestrial ones, an astronaut in a spacesuit. The work’s creation period coincides with the time of space expeditions: Vostok (USSR), Gemini, Apollo (USA), and Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin’s landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

On my journey to the sun with Hania, I experience silence on the ship, which was even deeper after we found ourselves behind the sun. We she greeted me goodbye, she said to me, “tell them about the lightness and transience of life. They are entangled. Lightness is tender attentiveness that protects against transience.”

In 1976, after twenty years of working at the Higher School of Fine Arts as a fabric printing teacher, Orzechowska was forced to resign due to difficulties in obtaining the title of associate professor. In 1979, a fire broke out in the artist’s studio, damaging most of her works, including the solar watercolours. In 1981, she went to Paris to help her daughter. In 1983, she was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery.

My journey to the sun with Hanna Orzechowska was a total experience, and it’s difficult to summarise its course in words. Immersing myself in her works, I discovered not only an artist but also a visionary who was ahead of her time. Through the fluidity of forms in her solar watercolours or the change in scale of the fifteenfold replicated sun, she opened me even further to the potential of the existence of extrasensory aspects of reality.

Writing these words, I feel that she is an important inspiration for my artistic research. Her work and life have nourished me as an artist and as a woman, enriching my female lineage. Her story encourages me to make further transgressions, despite the hardships. Our journey to the sun has become a symbol for me of the power of imagination, the strength to change, and perseverance despite adversity. I imagine that we exist in an extrasensory plane as two crystals. We are accompanied by the sun as a ‘knowing eye’. Its light creates a holographic image of our shared experience, recorded forever in the spatial memory. During our journey to the sun, I discovered terra incognita, a piece of extrasensory plane. And I feel that there are many more to discover.

“An artist is free to paint as he wishes, provided that each painting is done as if he were to die tomorrow, and his work were to be his last expression.”^[13]

1 Dorota Jarecka, Luiza Nader, Agata Siecińska, Looking into the Sun. Hanna Orzechowska, Studio Theatregallery, Warsaw 2024, fragment of an unsent letter from Hanna Orzechowska to her daughter Agata Siecińska, p. 69.

2 I use the image of Indra’s net, drawn from the Vedic tradition and used by Fa-tsang to illustrate the Hua-yen Doctrine of totality, where all phenomena in the universe are interconnected. He compared the universe to a cosmic net adorned with jewels in such a way that each jewel reflects all the others. Oxford Reference, https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100001960 [accessed: October 14, 2024].

3 Stanisław Lem, Tales of Pirx the Pilot, Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 2001, p. 155.

4 Exhibition Hanna Orzechowska. In Relation, curators: Luiza Nader, Marika Kuźmicz, collaboration: Adam Parol, Arton Foundation, Warsaw, 22.09–18.11.2023.

5 Luiza Nader, Looking into the Sun. Hanna Orzechowska, curatorial text for the exhibition, Galeria Studio, p. 2.

6 Biographical note from the catalog of Hanna Orzechowska’s individual exhibition of textiles and designs, Kordegarda, building of the Ministry of Culture and Art, Krakowskie Przedmieście 15/17, Warsaw 1960.

7 Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, trans. S. Królak, Wydawnictwo Wojewódzkiej Biblioteki Publicznej i Centrum Animacji Kultury, Poznań, 2024, “Some authorities argued that light is a wave, and others that it is a particle. Thomas Young’s double-slit experiment turned out to be a particularly pivotal moment in the centuries-old debate on this subject. (…) It seemed that these discoveries caused an earthquake in our perception of the nature of scientific knowledge, if not the very nature of the world. Before the dawn of the 20th century, it seemed that everything could be classified into two distinct categories: waves or particles. Every fraction of nature had a separate identity ensuring a place in one column or the other. Waves and particles are, after all, distinct phenomena with mutually exclusive characteristics. Particles are localized objects that at any given moment occupy a specific place in space. Waves have a completely different nature: they are not even strictly speaking entities, but rather disturbances in a medium or field.”, p. 137–141.

8 Ibid. “The past and future are recursively reconfiguring and interweaving as a result of the reiterative nature of intra-active practices constituting phenomena: phenomena cannot be located in space and time; they are rather material entanglements extending across various spaces and times. The production of the new cannot be located, and certainly cannot be possessed. Neither the future nor the past ever close. The new is not born in time, but rather it is about the intra-active birthing of new temporalities, new possibilities, in which the new is a trace of what is yet to come.”, p. 522.

9 Ibid., ‘Therefore, entanglement relations can create connections between entities that do not appear to be close in space and time’, p. 108.

10 Ibid., fragment of a letter from Hanna Orzechowska to her daughter, Agata Siecińska, p. 66.

11 Ibid., Luiza Nader on the artistic relationship between Orzechowska and Strzemiński: “Orzechowska’s afterimage watercolors corresponded to and, I believe, influenced (while also accepting influences) Strzemiński’s artistic practice and theory, who at the same time (and perhaps even during the same plein air?) began to create solaristic painting.”, p. 1

12 Hanna Orzechowska, as a student at the PWSSP in Łódź, encountered Władysław Strzemiński’s Theory of Vision. It influenced her perception in the field of art, but also shaped her view of the world.

13 Ibid., p. 71.