Winston Chmielinski works as Weseeclearly across painting, textiles and procedural software. His practice centres on the threshold between what has taken form and what remains possible.
Chmielinski’s contribution to FIELD WORK includes seven Helioptychs, folded textile paintings from an ongoing research project, alongside three freestanding screens. The film Fold In Light opens a view into the paintings’ development. Antiphony (Attuning) compresses the movement of the sky into sound, while 2161 consecutive days gives an uninterrupted meditation practice a material trace.
Living with a painting
A garment becomes more precious to its wearer as it bears the marks of use. Around 2023, Chmielinski began designing a jacket that could eventually return to the wall as a painting. Even as part of an edition, it could become unique through the life of the person wearing it.
The design used folds and minimal cuts to shape a rectangle around the body. Its pattern mapped a bodily volume onto a flat surface, and that geometry entered the paintings that followed.
The jacket raised a question that continues through the Helioptychs: what happens to the value of an artwork when the person living with it leaves a mark? Time, movement and handling wear into the surface as patina, and the mark carries a body, a place, a period of time. Something issued as an edition becomes singular through that life, and the value it accrues is not the same as its price. Whether the two converge, diverge, or one comes to supersede the other remains open.
Helioptychs
The Helioptychs are pigment-printed on linen viscose and mounted on xuan paper. Folding and handwork with pastel and ink give each object its particular surface.
The print carries both the bleaching of exposed areas and the saturated colour preserved within the folds. The folded cloth adds its own light and shadow, changing how those colours appear as light falls across the surface.
Paintings in use
Japanese hanging scrolls are rolled for storage and displayed to mark a season or occasion. Tibetan thangkas serve as supports for meditation.
These practices give painting a rhythm within a life. Chmielinski approaches his own paintings as instruments for sustained attention, to be returned to and worked with over time.
Freestanding screens
The freestanding screens give the image a structure at the scale of the body. Chmielinski engineered the lightweight frames himself, designing and 3D-printing the joints. He hand-dyed and sewed the fabric, which the frames hold under tension.
He relates the screens to mandalas and to the doors represented in temple architecture. The geometry of each screen offers a focus for sustained attention and suggests a space beyond the object itself.
The titles pair musical notes, drawing on his engagement with Gurdjieff’s work on intervals. He looks to the interval for resistance and support, finding a parallel in the tension that holds each screen together.
Each screen uses a different silk blend, hand-dyed and sewn by Chmielinski. Carbon fibre and 3D-printed joints form the frames, tensioned with Dyneema.
Fold In Light
Fold In Light follows the development of three Helioptychs through a simulation of folded surfaces and light. Beside the simulated cloth, an image develops as different areas are exposed or sheltered.
The silent film runs for 19 minutes and 15 seconds, looped.
Fold In Light at 2 minutes 48 seconds. The film follows Helioptychs Eleven (Scintillating), Twelve (Transparent) and Thirteen (Uniting).
Antiphony (Attuning)
Antiphony (Attuning) translates planetary transits into sound. The engine’s rate determines how much of the sky’s movement passes through a listening session.
The exhibition recording compresses approximately 179 days into 88 minutes and 27 seconds, looped.
2161 consecutive days
The title counts 2161 days of uninterrupted daily meditation. Chmielinski models wax dripping from four suspended tea lights over the same period. The candles and their supporting structure are absent from the sculpture. Drip by drip, the open space beneath them takes form.
Each generated form is printed once in PETG and finished by hand with wax.
The exhibition
Installation photographs by Lorenzo Palmieri
Presentation and enquiries
The Helioptychs are presented unframed on concealed mounts, with their folds projecting from the wall.
For available pieces and sales enquiries, contact Winston Chmielinski at hi@weseeclearly.com.
Prices in euro, VAT included. Availability and commission details by enquiry.
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