PROJECT 4: LOVE & ROMANCE.

Lelya on the Cross with Pasolino's Saints.
Oil on panel. 10 inches x 7 inches. 1974.

In 1975 Lenkiewicz produced a booklet titled: Love and Romance: A Note. This ran parallel with an Exhibition on the theme of Love and Romance. Lenkiewicz held the view that the traditional 'love' experience involved some kind of selective procedure; and that this selectivity was not conscious or deliberate. This worldwide human commonplace has been aggrandised and raised on pedestals of all kinds. Poetry and Literature has exemplified this physiological phenomenon from ancient times. He thought it interesting that other 'transcendent' or 'theological' experiences seemed to be made out of similar ingredients and that unexpected deprivation - grief, jealousy - revealed physiological trauma similar or identical to that experienced by the alcoholic or heroin-addict. He felt that it might be possible to aesthetically 'measure' the degree of addiction and the degree of withdrawals. He commenced a series of 'Aesthetic Notes' which attempted to record physiological sensation by means of certain colours and certain shapes. These notes are rarely seen but are voluminous. This line of enquiry has involved using himself as a guinea-pig and is an ongoing activity. A number of the paintings in Project 4 were elaborate constructions associating with theological artefacts and often gilded with omate emblems. A large number of ironic devices were constructed in order to draw attention to the mythic undertones that people (usually young) associate with the poetic notion of 'two' becoming 'one'. Lenkiewicz held the view that these behaviours indicated an obsessive, pathological ruthlessness involving patterns that were not unlike those found in political persuasions and fascism. They characterised human emotional development, or rather the lack of it.
Andre Breton once wrote:

"Before I knew you - look, the words are meaningless. You know very well that, when I saw you for the first time, I recognised you at once. "

Lenkiewicz noted in his research that one of the primary claims made by the 'lover' was that of 'union'. A unique twosome leading to a single unit. This did not seem to be so much a philosophical belief as a physiological need. If one were touched aesthetically at a deep enough level then 'ideology', 'fanaticism', 'love', would emerge. These observations were to lead to a careful investigation of physiological behaviour under crisis. The following projects were an expression of these. Imagery centring around The New Testament characterised sections of this project - Lenkiewicz's notes record:

"We are told of two thieves who hang by the side of a crucified man, (in romantic love, there are two thieves constantly stealing from each other, who finally crucify each other). We are further told of the Deposition, when the dead man is brought down from the cross and mourned. (In romantic love, one partner grieves after the lost affections of the other). We are finally told that the dead man resurrected. (In romantic Love, the 'loser' in the attachment replaces the addiction with a new companion.)"