A characteristic contents of Ewa Nemoudry pictures are figural compositions passing at points into genre scenes, whose poetry is achieved by a specific brushwork which often simplifies pictorial components down to a sign, reminiscent of children’s cut-out sheets arranged into a composition. The expressive fragmentation of the pictures is the means of a freer positioning of figures in a symbolic space. Thus, the pictures acquire an imaginative power that is also enhanced by a surrealism-based arrangement of themes and permeation of time levels by composing parallel stories, fade-ins of memories into the current action on the first visual plane. The depicted kaleidoscope of light, “the collage of pictorial heroes and their stories” is dramatised, and also made lyrical, by the outstanding colour of her compositions. The essence of the paintings consists in colour tones and counterpoint accords of green, blue, yellow, and broken red. All of this, together with the paintings’ ability to trigger in the viewers’ mind the imaginative play of serial stories, probably forms the basis of the alluring magic emanating from the pictures.
The subject of Ewa Nemoudry pictorial stories is a reflection of her own life, free transformation of memories of her personal experience. That is why we encounter musicians, scenes from a café with fashionable details of the heroes’ outfits, “with bodices, gloves, hats or shoes, but also with accessories such as little dogs”. Her frequent subject is the relationship between partners. To prove that the artist does not wish just to capture “her small world” but also to generalise, we find metaphoric “flying” figures, also a flying ballerina (equipped with funny wings to be clearly readable) as part of the scenery. In many ways, also in the overall impact of the pictures, we might find the application of elements, procedures and forms of naive art, but also e.g. of expressionism or imaginative painting. However, for us to avoid any misleading categorisation, let us rather point at the overall poetry of painter Ewa Nemoudry’s artistic statement, and her proximity to the family of creators such as Marc Chagall, Paul Klee and others.
Thus, both in their contents and form, the pictures of Ewa Nemoudry constitute a kind of visual parallel to commedia dell arte. In their burlesque, ironical, even critical, yet knowing and kindly view of a person (whose smile does not exclude moments of nostalgia, spleen or sadness), but mainly in the character of the spontaneous build-up of her pictorial compositions themselves. The artist’s lively imagination, her poetic tribute to everyday life in symbiosis with the dreamy world of fantasy; her ability to connect narrative elements with the summary means of expression; these are the merits of her work. It meets the conditions for achieving the integral view and understanding of the world, something so much needed in these times. This is where the true artistic values of Ewa Nemoudry’s work are vested. The values we should appreciate.
“The Poetics of Ewa Nemoudry Paintings”
Ivo Janoušek, Prague 1995