Lot 5

Michael Pszczonak’s most recent bodies of work have been been invested in the spatial overlay that occurs when looking out from a window at nighttime while the interior lights are turned on, as well as the reflections and spatial fluctuations that occur when looking through a window during the daytime. The darkness and illuminations of both the exterior landscape and the illumination of an interior space creates a perceptual phenomenon where we are simultaneously aware of the depth beyond the window, the reflection behind the window, and the surface of the window itself. Painting itself has that same perceptual shift between multiple modes of seeing through the awareness of both the material of paint and the image itself.

Pszczonak is currently creating paintings of a wide variety of windows. However, these images of public spaces are not his own – rather they are the images friends, acquaintances and perfect strangers have chosen to post on their Instagram feeds. The majority of these images are posted through Instagram stories – images that disappear after 24 hours. As such, by painting these images it speaks to ideas of a current throwaway culture, impermanence, and the materiality of paint vs. the immateriality of digital images.