Monika Grygier

Manipulating planes and spaces to represent urbanism, space and human activity, Polish painter Monika Grygier sets her acrylic works at specific places and times. Her urban vision recalls Piet Mondrian's "Broadway Boogie Woogie," although where that work unambiguously saw street activity from the night sky, Grygier adopts multiple perspectives. In certain works we seem to watch a frenzied bluish rush of commuting cars as if from a traffic helicopter, in others we look up the grayed sides of buildings from street-level, or see pedestrians filtering down sidewalks splashed with early morning's orange sunlight.

Regardless of the perspective she adopts, Grygier is able to imbue even works with cold grey and brown palettes with a sense of bustling activity and wonder that speaks to an irrepressible cosmopolitanism. Here, life and street life are one and the same. Certain brushstrokes confidently trace a thick, bold strut, some form a self-conscious trickle and others move in scrawled starts and fits as though distracted by the immensity of forces around them.