ADRIAN WISZNIEWSKI (SCOTTISH 1958-) §
UNTITLED
£3,750
Contemporary & Post-War Art // Prints & Multiples
Auction: Contemporary Art: 19 January 2022 | From 10:00
Description
Signed with initials and dated 2011 lower right, oil on canvas
Dimensions
84cm x 60cm (33in x 23.5in), unframed
Footnote
Note:
Adrian Wiszniewski was another key figure in the ‘New Generation’ of talent produced by the Glasgow School of Art in the 1980s; one of the so-called ‘New Glasgow Boys’.
Like many of his contemporaries including Howson, Campbell and Conroy, Wiszniewski’s art is grounded in an expressionist tradition. As suggested by the title of the blockbuster Vigorous Imagination exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1987, a showcase of these artists to the world, his work possesses an ambitious, eccentric quality.
An oblique, poetic exploration of burgeoning adolescent sexuality typifies his subject matter, as does an underpinning current of melancholia. Akin to his peer Steven Campbell, there is something consciously staged and mannered in the depiction of his ‘languorous youths’. In the work offered here for sale, two beautiful young men (who all have similar features and usually represent some form of alter-ego for the artist) take centre stage in a pastoral landscape. One sharpens a stake while the other holds a pair of flags, one small and orange, one large and red and emblazoned with a star. The work feels heavy in symbolism but the references are obscure. The overall effect, so typical of his work, is that we’ve somehow stumbled into the artist’s dream.