The “Escape” series develops at the intersection of contemporary art and exact sciences, combining canvas painting, photography, the geometry of crystal structures, and luminescence phenomena. Its starting point is Monika Wanat’s artistic practice and her research background in structural chemistry and crystallography.

The works in this series reject the concept of the painting as a static object — their perception is a process dependent on light, the viewer’s movement, and shifting observation conditions.

The inspiration comes from X-ray studies of crystals. When X-ray radiation hits a crystal, it diffracts, and the detector records a regular pattern of bright spots with varying intensities. Such an image does not yet reveal how the molecule is structured. Only a series of such images and mathematical calculations, in which the Fourier transform plays a key role, allow its three-dimensional model to be reconstructed.

In the project, this process becomes a metaphor for how we get to know another human being. What initially seems alien, cold, or indecipherable begins to make sense once we change our perspective and understand the context. Beneath apparent obscurity often lies order; one simply needs to give oneself time to perceive it.

The paintings change with the light and the movement of the viewer, so they are best experienced in motion: up close, from a distance, and from different angles. They can be viewed through the eyes of an artist, a scientist, or an art enthusiast. Every gaze will find something within them, and the longer we look and the more often we change our point of view, the more becomes visible.