In Full Colour - Selected Works and Commentary

  • Po-et, 1986, screenprint in an edition of 50 This was my first silkscreen print. I made a painting in designer...

    Po-et, 1986, screenprint in an edition of 50

     
    This was my first silkscreen print. I made a painting in designer gouache so as to replicate the flatness and evenness inherent in the silkscreen process. From this painting I overlaid the film and worked out the different colour separations and the order in which they should play their part. At this time, I was fascinated by the Romantic poets who brought a new power of imagination to a growing public.
     
    The title "Po-et" is a mock latinisation referring to the recumbent romantic poet and to the river Po in Northern Italy which periodically bursts its banks. This like the Poets power is enriching its environs with more than a hint of danger."
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  • A Study in Vinyl, 1999, screenprint in an edition of 50 This silkscreen in acrylic inks was made for a...

    A Study in Vinyl, 1999, screenprint in an edition of 50

     
    This silkscreen in acrylic inks was made for a folio called "Habitat" containing several artists invited to take part. Its title derives from "A Study in Scarlet" which was the first book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Homes series. I was attracted by the ambiguous nature this title. Was it a study of this particular colour of red and its possible meanings or was it a room in a house with the walls painted scarlet?
     
    The image takes its cue from "Whistler's Mother" where the sitter sits in profile. This painting is also called "Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1". I reinterpreted it with a sitter in a contemporary study in an arrangement of many colours.
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  • Daisy's in Space, 2001, screenprint in an edition of 50 A silkscreen made as a contribution to a folio called...

    Daisy's in Space, 2001, screenprint in an edition of 50

     
    A silkscreen made as a contribution to a folio called "Space". Being 2001 I took my cue from Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey" Towards the end of the film, HAL (a computer) is being demobilised because it has a fault… a human fault at its core. HAL's last words are "Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do. I'm half crazy. All for the love of you". This comes from an old music hall song called Daisy Bell. In 1961 this song was the first ever played by a computer.
     
    Also in 2001 raves were very much in vogue and ecstasy tablets were very much the drugs of favour. The smile face on these tablets is replicated on the face of the Daisy in this print and relates to the condition of being spaced out.
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  • The Sculptor's Nightmare, 1986-2025, hand-coloured etching This was my first etching. I couldn't decide on its actual dimensions so simply...

    The Sculptor's Nightmare, 1986-2025, hand-coloured etching

     
    This was my first etching. I couldn't decide on its actual dimensions so simply set on the largest etching plate possible for the printing press. The steel plate was prepared, waxed and smoked dark brown.
     
    I had recently made a painting of the same subject matter and felt that it would be interesting to develop it in black and white because of its gothic content. Working freehand I expanded the central action to encompass another world where moral decisions are discussed and made. The title refers to a melodramatic situation where a sculptor returns home late at night after working in his studio and discovers his bride in a trance-like state with two puncture marks in her neck and blood seeping. Is this a love bite and she has been unfaithful? Has she been bitten by a vampire who has been interrupted and escaped in bat form? If so, the sculptor must use his sculptors' tools and drive a fatal blow into her heart. But the nightmare question is as follows: in doing so, is his intention to save his bride's soul or is it an act of revenge for an unfaithful bride?
     
    In 2025 I revisited the etching and hand coloured it so as to extract the form from the shadows and tighten the drama. 
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  • Dunure Beach, mixed media on panel In 2016, with the assistance of a Creative Scotland Award, I traveled the lengths...

    Dunure Beach, mixed media on panel

     
    In 2016, with the assistance of a Creative Scotland Award, I traveled the lengths and breadths of Scotland and New Zealand to investigate the meanings behind landscape and landscape painting. An exhibition at GPS in 2017 resulted with paintings and prints.
     
    On a visit to Dunure I noticed a plaque pointing out that this was a popular place for Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his friends to visit. I sat on a rock and watched the tide come in and swirl around a group of stones projecting from below the coastal waters. These stones had been eroded and transformed through time but one stood higher than the rest. It made me think of Mackintosh and how his reputation stands high while that of many   of his friends are all but lost.
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  • Titania and the Fairies, 1995-2025, hand-coloured lithograph I was commissioned by the Barbican Arts Centre to make a folio of...

    Titania and the Fairies, 1995-2025, hand-coloured lithograph

     

    I was commissioned by the Barbican Arts Centre to make a folio of lithographs based on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare. This gave me an opportunity to get a deeper understanding of Shakespeare's work, his motivations and the structures that he employed. The folio was made at Glasgow Print Studio where I worked with Murray Robertson. Outwith the folio but relating to it was this lithograph that was printed on delicate Japanese paper. In 2025 I hand coloured it, trimmed it and attached it to a firmer sheet of paper by running it through the press.

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  • Boy, 2004 ; Girl, 2004 - screenprint editions of 40 These 2 prints were a result of making silkscreens in...

    Boy, 2004 ; Girl, 2004 - screenprint editions of 40

     

    These 2 prints were a result of making silkscreens in a new way. It was an attempt at assimilating the drawing and printing processes. I drew each portrait head with coloured oil pastel on the clear film. I then layered another film on top super imposing a drawing using a new colour. I continued this process with layer after layer and colour after colour until the drawing was complete. I then took each of these layers (separations) and prepared the different screens for each different colour. They were subsequently printed in the same order as the original drawing was made.

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  • Corrupt Love : Satyrical Piece : Tight-rope : Living Room : Execution

     

    Between 1986 and 1987 my wife Diane and I moved to Liverpool for a residency at the Walker Art Gallery. This gave me the opportunity for developing my practice in several different directions. The Glasgow Print Studio prepared a large number of steel plates for me to work on while in Liverpool and I decided that I should treat them as I would a sketch book so that ideas would easily flow. When I got the plates proofed back in Glasgow I was horrified. They looked scratchy with a dirty grey background. I was ready to scrap them when I looked up and saw a row of coloured inks. Could I do these in colour? In my ignorance I only knew of etchings in black and white but colour would bring another dimension. So we proceeded in developing each image with additional toning and colouring. I have hand coloured these images to take their power to a higher level.

     

    For Corrupt Love, I had been reading about the Cathars in early medieval France and their conflict with the established church of Rome. The Cathars saw Rome (Roma) as a corruption of Love (Amor). The printing process reverses the image such that words written will read back to front. With this in mind, I made an image of mourners grieving at a graveside with the word LOVE marked out upon the grave. However, due to the printing process the LOVE has turned to EVOL (Evil).

    • Adrian Wiszniewski, Corrupt Love, 1987-2025
      Adrian Wiszniewski, Corrupt Love, 1987-2025
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    • Adrian Wiszniewski, Satyrical Piece, 1987-2017
      Adrian Wiszniewski, Satyrical Piece, 1987-2017
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    • Adrian Wiszniewski, Tight-Rope, 1987-2025
      Adrian Wiszniewski, Tight-Rope, 1987-2025
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    • Adrian Wiszniewski, Living Room, 1987
      Adrian Wiszniewski, Living Room, 1987
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    • Adrian Wiszniewski, Execution, 1987-2025
      Adrian Wiszniewski, Execution, 1987-2025
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  • 1995 Flag Series

     

    I was invited by John Cairns to take up five projects for Middlesbrough involving installation, window displays, furniture, neons and flag design.
     
    Each of these projects had small seed funding but offered exciting artistic possibilities. The flags and their titles derived from the simple cutting out of coloured paper and laying it onto a coloured ground. What resulted was a series of twelve flags called the Newleafland Series which at some point flew outside the Museum of Modern Art in Antwerp before the wind blew them away.
     
    The flags were for places that either didn't exist such as Atlantis or places that had no flag such as the spot where Grace Kelly came off the road in Monte Carlo (Hairpin-Benz). The design for these flags made a fine folio of silkscreens made between GPS and the Northern Print Studio in Sunderland.
    • Adrian Wiszniewski, Private Island Marlon Brando, 1995
      Adrian Wiszniewski, Private Island Marlon Brando, 1995
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    • Adrian Wiszniewski, Lizards Point to Falcon Crest, 1995
      Adrian Wiszniewski, Lizards Point to Falcon Crest, 1995
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    • Adrian Wiszniewski, New Leafland South Island, 1995
      Adrian Wiszniewski, New Leafland South Island, 1995
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    • Adrian Wiszniewski, Atlantis, 1995
      Adrian Wiszniewski, Atlantis, 1995
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    • Adrian Wiszniewski, Little Pittcairn II, 1995
      Adrian Wiszniewski, Little Pittcairn II, 1995
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