Jan de Weryha-Wysoczański

Regular grids and orders consisting of serially arranged modules can still be observed today in the "Wooden Panels" by de Weryha (ill.78, 91, 92). However, his compositions are not based on a sophisticated mathematical system, but on simple measurements and working with proportions derived from experience, also oriented on the possibilities of the modular components obtained from the wood.[2] Eugen Gomringer, Bill's secretary and the inventor of Concrete Poetry, has pointed out that since the 1990s various artists have added further "fields" to the initially rigorous system of Concrete Art. These can be traced back to broadened perspectives, new perceptions and experiences with other materials.[3] De Weryha plays a role in this traditional thread, by concentrating on wood as a material, and optimising the perception of the material on the basis of concrete structures.

De Weryha's reliefs and objects, whose appearance is characterised by a largely monochrome geometric surface structure, also draw on the experiences and insights of the ZERO group, founded in 1957 by Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, and shortly afterwards joined by Günther Uecker. The group cooperated with other international artists' associations like the Dutch group Nul (English: Null) around Jan Schoonhoven. ZERO was not a direct reflexive reaction to Constructivism and Concrete Art, but it nevertheless acted with the background knowledge of the insights acquired there. Piene's serial hole patterns and the objects and installations developed from them, as well as Mack's geometrically structured and rotating, often circular aluminium reliefs, served to make light visible in circular, spiral, field and wave movements. These were followed by Uecker's nail pictures and objects coated with white paint and Schoonhoven's stereometrically structured white reliefs made of cardboard. In Poland, Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz constructed freestanding metal sculptures in the mid-1960s featuring geometrically arranged grids, bars, and lamellas, with which he investigated problems of space in relation to light and rhythmic movements. Since 1968 Jerzy Grabowski has worked in graphic art with pure white geometric embossed prints reminiscent of blind embossings by Uecker, Schoonhoven and the Bauhaus teacher Anni Albers.

Similar structures and light effects can be found in de Weryha's "Wooden Panels" (ill. 71, 79, 92) and the round "Wooden Objects" (ill. 82, 85), which occasionally change to white. Whoever wants to, will even see successors of Uecker's nail pictures in individual works (ill. 68, 77), whereby for de Weryha the focus is on the optical and haptic qualities and effects of wood as a material. In 1959 Piene introduced the use of fire as an artistic technique with his "Rauch" and "Feuerbilder". De Weryha, initiated by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, continued along this path by charring wood to create individual objects in two colours (ill. 28, 32, 33, 35, 43-47, 59, 62, 66, 70). Here too he was not primarily concerned with colour contrast, but with adding a further expression to the material wood, obtained by means of a natural process.[4]  

De Weryha has told interpreters of his work that he is particularly fascinated by the Minimal Art movement that emerged in New York in 1960 with the protagonists Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt.[5] Indeed, his early objects and floor works, all "untitled" (ill. 3, 10, 14, 19), consisting of wooden parallelepipeds, are in fact reminiscent of the objects by Carl Andre, who also worked with rows of metal plates, bricks, concrete blocks and wires. Minimal Artists used industrially manufactured, standardised materials like anodised aluminum, stainless steel, plexi and fibreglass, styrofoam, copper and zinc, as well as machine-made wooden workpieces that anyone might have purchased in the building materials trade as elements for their own artistic productions. They were concerned with the perception of differentiated structures in space and the effect of object and space on the viewer. De Weryha's works, however, show clear traces of handcrafted processing with a chainsaw, axe or chisel. In his work, no edge of the individual modules is straight; industrially produced materials are alien to him. Rather, his individual artistic treatment of the material wood with its optical, haptic and olfactory qualities gives it a new validity.