Critical Response
	Chojnowski’s medium precludes setting an easel and working in the fields: he photographs for reference, then goes back to the studio to burn his images into wet paper with a blowtorch. The elegant night city scenes that dominate this collection all meditate on variations of the same composition, looking up the center of an alley of buildings, out of which a set of two of headlights shine bright paths down the paper to the viewer’ eye... Sophie Felf, The New Yorker. October 1, 2001 Paul Chojnowski’s small dark figure studies have the dark palette of certain Old Master paintings.... he has an eye for the details of the human figure, and the outcome of that is a body of work that is much more than simply brooding. The quite drama of these pieces, which explore psychological states through symbolically loaded motifs, makes this exhibit well worth a visit.... Jerry Cullum, The Atlanta Journal Constitution. November 5, 1993 One of the most unusual pieces here is Paul Chojnowski’s alter like wall piece, River of Blood / Bridge of Hope which also hints at a political theme. This large image of an old fashioned steel support bridge has been burned onto adjoining wood panels whose shape resembles a triple arched window like those that line the walls of some churches. The bridges central segment is missing and this renders it ineffective as a means of crossing the wide river below it. For this reason it seems to function not as an emblem of hope, but rather its absence. Attached to the wood surface are six sconces that hold unlighted votive candles, and outlined against the dark area above each of them is a shape that looks like a country, state or other bordered region on a map. It is a striking piece and visually it’s one of the exhibits highlights. Tom Patterson, Winston-Salem Journal. March 23, 1997. The notion of creating by destroyingis arguably novel in Chojnowski’s fire drawing... traditional stone carving,woodcut printing and the lost wax process are other ready examples of the ubiquity of destruction as a gernative force. What Chojnoweski’s medium offers him here are a self-limiting methodology in “an alternative form of image making ” for”returning to recognizable imagery after nearly 10 years of non--objective painting and printmaking.” These remarks from an exhibition pamphlet reveal a mature artist who knows himself well enough to move on when stylistically exhausted, while acknowledgeing his need to reclaim an abandoned imagery, namely that of the human form. Mark Price, ART papers. August, 1996. Close Cover Before Striking Stepping into the world of Paul Chojnowski is like getting into a car driven by the Coen Brothers with David Lynch riding shotgun. His take on the nocturne is seen through the scrim of the romance and corruption of film noir. Maybe using a blowtorch as a drawing tool causes a certain sense of menace to leak into the proceedings. Chojnowski began using burning techniques on plywood, but soon decided that he had too much control over the process and began to use fire with water on the surface of heavyweight watercolor paper. The control of the proper amount of burning is critical. If the artists pushes the flame too far, he runs the risk of overheating the entire piece and having it burst into flame. The result of the process as well as the way the image is cropped gives of a view of urban spaces through the windshield of a speeding car, its interior clouded with cigarette smoke and flying as the sky outside glows like a toxic cloud. Neil Watson Curator of Exhibitions and Contemporary Art at the Norton Museum of Art Excerpted from the catalog essay that accompanied the exhibition