Abbey Ruins, Whitby Watercolour, 2011 80 x 56 cms	Black Cattle Watercolour, 2010 39 x 54 cms SOLD	Brambles under snow with Viaduct Watercolour, 2012 75 x 46 cms SOLD	Bridge at Dunwich II Watercolour, 2010 54 x 54 cms SOLD	Chappel Village under snow, 2012 46 x 75 cms
Cloud Study, Stowe Hill Watercolour, 2012 27 x 40 cms SOLD	Colchester Road, Summer Watercolour, 2012 56 x 76 cms	Coppiced Wood Water colour 2011 90 x 45 cms	East Cliff, Whitby II Watercolour, 2012 68.5 x 46 cms	Empty Beach, North Norfolk Watercolour, 2012 25 x 37 cms SOLD
Entering Chappel Watercolour, 2012 46 x 75 cms	Field Entrance Watercolour, 2012 55 x 75 cms SOLD	Frinton Beach Huts Watercolour, 2012 20 x 55 cms SOLD	Holme Valley, Yorkshire Watercolour, 2011 100 x 150 cms	Ice Cream, Robin Hood's Bay Watercolour, 2012 75 x 55 cms
Landscape Beyond the Hedge Watercolour, 2010 75 x 50 cms SOLD	Millenium Pond in snow Watercolour, 2012 50 x 75 cms	Millenium Greenwith Viaduct under snow Watercolour, 2012 34 x 55 cms	Morning Watercolour, 2012 89 x 64 cms	Norton Hall Farm Watercolour, 2012 34 x 34 cms
Poppies with Viaduct Watercolour, 2012 55 x 76 cms	Rough Sea, Frinton Watercolour, 2010 30 x 45 cms SOLD	Ruins, Dunwich, Watercolour, 2012 30 x 50 cms SOLD	Sky Study, Watercolour, 2012 18 x 26 cms SOLD	Steps, footbridge and kissing gate Watercolour, 2011 100 x 75 cms SOLD
The Angler Watercolour, 2012 45 x 90 cms	Viaduct under Moonlight Watercolour, 2012 76 x 55 cms SOLD	Viaduct with Moon Shadow Watercolour, 2012 55.5 x 71 cms	View from Larpool Viaduct towards Whitby watercolour, 2012 60 x 90 cms	Vineyard with Hill, Ceressou, France Watercolour, 2012 38 x 76 cms
Whitby Bay Watercolour, 2012 40 x 120 cms SOLD	Windbreak, hedgerow, autumn Watercolour, 2012 37 x 60 cms	Winter Avenue Watercolour, 2010 75 x 50 cms SOLD	Blasted Trunk 2011 (Dunwich) Watercolour 75 x 50 cms	Bluebells in Chalkney Wood 2011 Watercolour 80 x 120 cms
Colne Valley View III 2011 (view from Bacon’s Lane) Watercolour 50 x 150 cms	Fallen Leaves 2011 Watercolour 90 x 78 cms	Fallen Tree 2011 (Dunwich) Watercolour 60 x 80 cms SOLD	Jubilee Night 2012 Watercolour 34 x 55 cms	Larpool Viaduct, Whitby 2011 Watercolour 40 x 55 cms
Lunchtime at the Mermaid Café 2010 Watercolour 71 x 120 cms	No. 4 Rue Paul Valery, Peret, France 2012 Watercolour 43 x 20 cms SOLD	Ploughed Field with Viaduct 2010 Watercolour 54 x 75 cms	Southend on Sea, Summer 2010 Watercolour 72 x 52 cms	Station Road, Wakes Colne 2010 Watercolour 38 x 88 cms
	Submerged Gangplank, Tollesbury 2012 Watercolour 76 x 54 cms SOLD	Swans, Tollesbury 2012 Watercolour 22x66 SOLD	Thornfield Wood 2012 Watercolour 38 x 55 cms

Over the years of Waj Mirecka’s artistic maturity other writers have evoked better than I ever could the qualities of observation and precision he brings to interpreting the landscape of Essex and Suffolk. These detailed insights and poetic moments are self-evident to those able to contemplate quietly the kind of subtle pictures which are polite enough to sit back waiting to be found. It is in the genes of every English person, it would seem, to understand and appreciate such descriptions of landscape, light and weather conveyed in Waj’s paintings. We can’t help it, and only the most curmudgeonly city-wallah could fail to admit to their reassuring charms.

Yes his pure landscapes are beautiful perspectives of foreground detail and distant sketch; and, yes, the ability to capture, for example, that magical moment when upon entering a bluebell wood the air is as if suffused with cerulean powder, instantly strikes a chord in those for whom such small experiences make life worth living. But one continuing subject of Waj’s work has always appealed to me more than any other: that viaduct. The first painting I really noticed of Waj’s depicted this sturdy bridge stepping across the middle of the picture connecting both sides of the Colne valley and the composition. Here was another painter to add to my list of those worth following, and another bridge that must be visited and explored.

Against the grain of the picturesque and the facile appeal of greenery, the viaduct is a blunt man-made presence. A tricky subject for a painter this, not least because it might make a work unsalable; such impositions on the beautiful are perhaps attractive only to those who respond to landscape with a decidedly human edge. We know that John Constable, an artist of an adjacent valley, was highly selective about what he included in what many assume to be topographical scenes of the Stour valley; for him nothing could be allowed to compromise the pastoral idyll ... or, more importantly, the prospect of a sale. It is almost as though in his pictures of the Chappel viaduct Waj deliberately takes the opposite approach: the bridge becomes the genius loci, as though nothing else can exist without it.
 
So what is this structure that Waj can see every day from his studio window? Chappell viaduct is among the most famous of British bridges and for 85 years from when it was completed in 1849 it was the largest brick-built structure in Britain; only Battersea Power Station (completed 1935) eventually used more bricks. The usually scrupulously objective Oxford Gazaetteer of Railway Buildings can’t resist describing it as “A very fine structure by any standard.” Chappel can’t compete with Yorkshire’s Ribblehead viaduct in length but its 32 arches exceed the two dozen of the Ribblehead and the idiosyncratic details of its design and proportion, especially its tapering piers, are second to none in allure. Its stone imposts, muscular relieving arches and all-round craftsmanship and finish make its northern stone counterpart appear crude and austere in comparison. Building was begun in 1847 to a plan by Peter Schuyler Bruff (1812-1900), a civil engineer with the Great Eastern Railway, and it is testimony to the optimism and belief of the early Victorians that such an expensive monolithic structure could even be considered for what was only a minor branch off the main line. The seven million red bricks used are made from clay mined locally at Bures and a legion of navvies were camped in the valley for the two years required to complete the work.
 
Waj’s paintings of the viaduct are scarcely landscapes at all so much as portraits. We know every aspect of its character and seasonal clothing from the pictures. I now search for the viaduct in every watercolour he paints and almost feel cheated when he’s left it out. And there isn’t a picture in which it appears where the bridge, however peripheral it may appear to the scene, doesn’t become the subject thereby upstaging everything else. Few important man-made structures can have been as comprehensively described with as much affection as Chappell viaduct. I can’t think of a precedent in British landscape painting of an artist portraying any building so comprehensively and with such single-minded conviction over such a long period.

Doubtless there are many who, like Ruskin, would interpret the viaduct as a despoiling, unnatural, and even ungodly, invader – like all railways, quarries, pylons, telegraph poles, power stations, refineries and other manifestations of industry – but this is not the case for me. Such inventions are far from blots on the view; in my book there’s little to beat a good ‘Satanic mill’. I love the way we have altered the land so often for the better with our functional sculptures and I’m uncritically fond of landscape paintings which celebrate our part in their appearance. Having been trained originally as an engineer it is no surprise that such an impressive feat as the Chappell viaduct should absorb Waj’s attention and become the backbone of so many of his paintings. It is the one unalterable fact in a view in which no other feature presents the same shape or colour from one day to the next. Long may it remain a leitmotif for its unofficial artist-in-residence.

David Lee
Editor of The Jackdaw

WŁADYSŁAW MIRECKI 1956 Born Chelmsford, Essex of Polish parentage. He is self-taught, having painted all his life including his periods gaining his science degree, as an industrial designer and co-proprietor of Chappel Galleries (1986 - March 2010).     EXHIBITED     1988 New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London 1989 Epping Forest District Museum “Artists in Essex” 1989 Beecroft Art Gallery, Westcliffe on Sea, Essex 31st Open Exhibition 1990 Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition 1991 Foyles Art Gallery, London 1992 Department of Transport art Competition, Mall Galleries, London Deuxieme Salon Biennale de L’Aquarelle, Hirson, France (Chelmsford 1993) Essex County Council, Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Essex Commission 1996 Chappel Galleries, Essex10th Anniverary Exhibition: Solo Exhibition 1997 Singer and Friedlander, Sunday Times Exhibition, London Beecroft Art Gallery, Essex: Open Exhibition 1999 Jiangsu Provincial Art Gallery, Nanjing, China: Solo Exhibition Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition 2002 Chappel Galleries, Essex Blyth Spirit “Walberswick Artists: 1880–2000” 2003 Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition WH Pattersons, London Christmas Mixed Exhibition 2004 Royal Academy, London Summer Exhibition WH Pattersons, London Christmas Mixed Exhibition 2006 Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition 2007 Royal Watercolour Society Open Competition, Bankside Gallery, London. Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, Mall Galleries, London. Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition Mall Galleries, London: Winner of the Edward Wesson Award. Beecroft Art Gallery, Westcliffe on Sea, Essex 49th Essex Open Exhibition: Awarded Prize and Shirley Robson Bowl for the best watercolour. Chappel Galleries, Essex ‘Southwold, the East Coast’. Sunday Times/Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander, London: 3rd Prize Winner, The Mall Galleries, London. Lynn Painter-Stainers, London. Chichester Open Art Exhibition, Chichester. Royal West of England Academy 155th Autumn Exhibition, Bristol. New English Art Club, The Mall Galleries, London. 2008 RWS/Sunday Times watercolour competition, Bankside Gallery, London Lynn Painters-Stainers, London (third prize winner) 2009 Chappel Galleries, Essex Solo Exhibition Lynn Painter-Stainers, London 2010 Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 198 Annual Exhibition, London Eastern Open, King’s Lynn Arts Centre Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 23rd Year (2nd Prize Winner), Mall Galleries, London Duncan Campbell Fine Art, London: Solo Exhibition 2011 Work on loan for opening of new branch of Handelsbanken, Colchester Sunday Times Watercolour Competition in association with Smith and Williamson: The Mall Galleries, London   Discerning Eye Exhibition: The Mall Galleries, London 10-20 November 2012 Piers Feetham Gallery, London: Solo Exhibition Lynn Painter Stainers Exhibition, London Chappel Galleries, Essex: Solo Exhibition Norwich Castle Open Art Show 2013 Chelmsford Borough Museum: Two Man Exhibition with Paul Rumsey, 9th February to 21st April. 2013 Studio Eleven, Westcliff on Sea, Essex: ‘Kiss the Joy’ mixed exhibition. 2013 Royal Society of British Artists, Annual Exhibition: The Mall Galleries, London.     COLLECTIONS     1989 Essex County Council 1999 Jiangsu Province Art Museum, People’s Republic of China Jiangsu Province Department of Culture, People’s Republic of China 2000, 09 Chelmsford Museums, Essex 2000 Ipswich Borough Council Museums & Galleries, Suffolk 2012 Colchester and Ipswich Museums (on behalf of Colchester Borough Council)     PUBLICATIONS     2000 February Edition, Jiangsu Art Monthly April Edition, Artists & Illustrators Magazine 2003 A Walk in the Country – 32pp Monograph 2006 “Southwold: An Earthly Paradise” by Geoffrey Munn. Władysław Mirecki at Fifty – 32pp Monograph. BBC Television Programme: ‘Seven Man-made Wonders of the East’ interview about Chappel Viaduct, showing Mirecki’s paintings depicting the Viaduct. 2009 Jackdaw Magazine “Easel Words” May/June issue The Artist Magazine, “Masterclass” November issue Pratique des Arts magazine France, December issue 2010 Duncan Campbell exhibition brochure: Introduction by Andrew Lambirth, art critic of The Spectator. 2012 Jackdaw Magazine page 36: News 'That Beckam Tattoo' 'Closely Observed' Landscape - East Anglia and Beyond: Introduction by Andrew Wilton published by Piers Feetham Gallery, London.