Ss14 - Phantom Details: Agata Wierzbicka

“If you want to create and you have such a strenuous need, it won't matter to you if you have a large or small studio”

WORDS BY BEN McHUTCHION
ART BY AGATA WIERZBICKA

The art of Warsaw-based illustrator Agata Wierzbicka often subverts expectations. Her portraits frequently hide her subjects’ faces, while her fashion drawings leave most of an ensemble up to the imagination. These creative choices align well with her preference for minimalism. Wierzbicka believes her architectural training has also influenced her creative process, teaching her to subtract unnecessary elements until a satisfactory purity of form is revealed. The omitted elements in her work are, however, full of phantom details. Her fashion illustrations employ simple forms such as sparse line drawings and simple blocks of colour, giving the viewer just enough to get a sense of an outfit. Sections apparently left undrawn may be made whole by the judicious shaping of background forms to complete a figure’s outline. It all makes for an engaging visual puzzle, confounding the usual expectations of background, foreground, and figural integrity. This is not colouring outside the lines; the lines are gone, and they are not missed.

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