TRACKS

As a counterpoint to Polli's urban motifs, the nature depicted in the paintings of the "Tracks" series is wild and untamed. The starting points for these paintings are color photographs, but also sketches – not so much in the sense of a nature study, but rather in a reduction of color and form – that the artist creates on-site in nature and later uses as references for her painterly abstractions in the studio. Therefore, the foundation of Polli’s work is not the precise observation of specific plants or the depiction of botanically accurate laws, but rather a graphic representation of what is perceived, aiming to capture the essence of the possible.In the process of reduction and focus on primarily visible structures – essentially as a 'macerate,' an essence and memory image – only the 'force lines' remain, which give the remembered forest scene its structure and through which each painting develops its own dynamic. Besides these primary structures of the memory image, referred to here as force lines, Polli’s paintings often feature a particularly multilayered application of color: amidst deep black, often sharply contoured lines, there are delicate gradations of gray and cloudy color accumulations that draw the viewer’s gaze into an intangible depth. The pictorial space opens into a vast distance, shimmering with watery indeterminacy and conjuring patterns of nebulous forms. The playful uncertainty in perception when alternating between micro and macro structures has become an artistic strategy here.
Jan T. Wilms - Excerpt from the catalog "TRACKS"