Framing the Moments

Katarzyna Woźniak By Katarzyna Woźniak

Krzysztof Kokoryn

As far as the eye can see, the moment rules the world. Whatever happens, it is all equally important and interesting, comprehensive and contemporaneous, worth capturing.

The festive everyday life is marked with a clear, bold line, it does not escape the eye. Toasts, figures, conversations and laughter. Kokoryn stops the frame but sets the eye in motion on the canvas. The roughly-drawn protagonists do nothing but exist in the moment. Enchanted in the dance, they do not acknowledge time, although they succumb to its rhythm.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Transatlantic Oil on canvas 140 x 81 centimeters [Price: PLN 6000]

The Transatlantic


A prince and a count are travelling on it, a world-famous actor, luxury ladies of uncertain repute, rootless people, cobblers’ apprentices and ordinary folk in search of experiences. Of which they (…)

A prince and a count are travelling on it, a world-famous actor, luxury ladies of uncertain repute, rootless people, cobblers’ apprentices and ordinary folk in search of experiences. Of which they get plenty as they try to kill boredom between one continent and the next. Perhaps it can be done with dancing, which will render everyone equal? Away from the open deck, they don’t see the sharp teeth of the waves or think of icebergs.

The tourists don’t know where they’ve been. The travellers don’t know where they’ll wind up.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Boards 2 Oil on canvas 70 x 70 centimeters [Price: PLN 6000]

The Floor 2


As long as the bandoneon is playing, they world does not exist for them. Gazing into space, she rests her white arm on his. The dancers are mindful of their borders; they stay within the framework of (…)

As long as the bandoneon is playing, they world does not exist for them. Gazing into space, she rests her white arm on his. The dancers are mindful of their borders; they stay within the framework of a convention. Passion under control, elegance subordinated to the restraints of figures.

Gazes are a different matter. Jealous, curious, mocking. The axis of the canvas is set by the musician. It’s not clear whether he sees anything; his gaze is absent.

Don’t underestimate gossip. It makes the world dance.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Piazzolla Oil on canvas 40 x 50 centimeters [Price: PLN 5000]

Piazzolla


The master and his instrument have grown together and become one. Piazzola started playing as an eight-year-old in a New York neighbourhood full of violence and shouting. His tango has an expressive (…)

The master and his instrument have grown together and become one. Piazzola started playing as an eight-year-old in a New York neighbourhood full of violence and shouting. His tango has an expressive rhythm, occasionally cracked with a dissonance. Bent into an arc like the bellows of his instrument, Astor Piazzolla is playing in tender concentration. He emerges from a thick layer of synthetic vermillion. Immobilized in a freeze frame, he trembles ever so slightly.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Red dance-floor Oil on canvas 70 x 100 centimeters [Price: PLN 6500]

The Dance-floor


Music is the most democratic of the arts. The body as an instrument of motion, the greatest object of earthly desire. The composition of the painting is governed by the vertical curves of women’s (…)

Music is the most democratic of the arts. The body as an instrument of motion, the greatest object of earthly desire. The composition of the painting is governed by the vertical curves of women’s bodies. Everyone is dancing serenely, evenly, in concord. The symmetrical pattern made by the dancers’ bodies is transformed into a visual sign of fulfilment.

You dance.

You live.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Adios nonino (Mumuki) Oil on canvas 50 x 70 centimeters [Price: PLN 6500]

Adios nonino (Mumuki)


The power of the tango comes from inner tension. It’s a paradoxical dance: it embodies freedom or the desire to be free, although it forces the dancers into prescribed figures and a demanding (…)

The power of the tango comes from inner tension. It’s a paradoxical dance: it embodies freedom or the desire to be free, although it forces the dancers into prescribed figures and a demanding rhythm. As long as they’re dancing, they cannot step out of the frame.

Is this about physical solace, or about taming the world’s indifference?

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Los vino Oil on canvas 50 x 70 centimeters [Price: PLN 6500]

Los vino


Kokoryn the epicure seems unable to exist on canvas without music. Affirmation of the moment, the charm of small pleasures, and everything sensual: those are the fundamental forces of his art. Dance (…)

Kokoryn the epicure seems unable to exist on canvas without music. Affirmation of the moment, the charm of small pleasures, and everything sensual: those are the fundamental forces of his art.

Dance is a concentration of what feeds our ever-hungry corporality. In a sensual tango con corte y quebrada, she blossoms under his gaze into beauty, her eyes half-closed. Captured in the thirsty simplicity of his/the painter’s? gaze, they remain, unassailable by time.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Papirosa Oil on canvas 50 x 100 centimeters [Price: PLN 7000]

Papirosa


So much poise! Their bodies touch exactly along the axis of the painting, stretched, elegant within their borders, and apparently non-greedy. Their feet are aligned with the texture of the floor; (…)

So much poise! Their bodies touch exactly along the axis of the painting, stretched, elegant within their borders, and apparently non-greedy. Their feet are aligned with the texture of the floor; they fit into the space of room.

He’s savouring the dance, suspended.

She avoids his gaze. She’s immersed in another dance, betrayed only by the blush in her cheeks.

And in the corner – an empty chair, the third partner.

Cigarettes, you are the only thing that doesn’t betray.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Plaza Dorrego Bar (El Ultimo Cafe) Oil on canvas 70 x 90 centimeters [Price: PLN 6000]

Plaza Dorrego Bar (El Último Café)


In the Last Café details begin to slip away from the field of vision. Colours depart along with the shades of the shadows. A memory of rhythm trails over the dance floor. The upturned chair legs (…)

In the Last Café details begin to slip away from the field of vision. Colours depart along with the shades of the shadows. A memory of rhythm trails over the dance floor. The upturned chair legs wait for the dawn.

In the last café the night is uncertain. It’s not over yet, but the day is already established on the awnings.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Tango in the street Oil on canvas 50 x 120 centimeters [Price: PLN 7000]

Tango in the street


At night in the middle of the road the air doesn’t stir. Perhaps they’ve chosen dancing over fighting. Everything stands still, suspended – the car, the fire hydrant. Their steps echo off the (…)

At night in the middle of the road the air doesn’t stir. Perhaps they’ve chosen dancing over fighting. Everything stands still, suspended – the car, the fire hydrant. Their steps echo off the walls, the pavement, the roof tiles. It’s the final figure, but the dancers don’t want to stop. She looks at him boldly, between a stomp and a caress. She won’t let him out of her embrace.

It’s one of those moments you beg to last.

The moon is their only witness.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Tom Waits Oil on canvas 50 x 70 centimeters [Price: PLN 6000]

Tom Waits


Tarantella in oversize boots and a haze of smoke. The tramp on the stage cavorts in an oil-paint dance. Footloose, he needs no bones. In the name of fidelity to art, he’s wearing the same battered (…)

Tarantella in oversize boots and a haze of smoke. The tramp on the stage cavorts in an oil-paint dance. Footloose, he needs no bones. In the name of fidelity to art, he’s wearing the same battered hat he’s worn for years. Is he bowing or is he kidding?

Straight out of a vaudeville, he pouts with his African lips. As if he wasn’t the epitome of visions, ballads, the blues and screaming.

He’s always wanted to live in songs and never to come back.

A late beatnik: the older he gets, the younger he is.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Rain Dogs Oil on canvas 24 x 33 centimeters [Price: PLN 4000]

Rain dogs


The idyll of the everyday. Small happinesses and rituals. Everything in its place, in perfect harmony. A lot can happen here: an intimate concert for one pair of ears, nineteen songs that haunt you, (…)

The idyll of the everyday. Small happinesses and rituals. Everything in its place, in perfect harmony. A lot can happen here: an intimate concert for one pair of ears, nineteen songs that haunt you, a phone number scribbled on a piece of paper (to use or not). Kokoryn’s visual imagination means that everything can become a holiday. Even the pilsner, unexpectedly gracing a wine glass with its amber hue.

Or is it already over? A greeting and a farewell in one look. An inner photo in oil.

Krzysztof Kokoryn
Kokoryn & Pospieszalski Ink on paper 40 x 30 centimeters [Price: PLN 2000]

Kokoryn & Pospieszalski


Kokoryn’s paintings can’t exist without music; music is omnipresent in them. It’s a dual space, belonging to both nature and art, to the world and to man. The painter and the musician – (…)

Kokoryn’s paintings can’t exist without music; music is omnipresent in them. It’s a dual space, belonging to both nature and art, to the world and to man.

The painter and the musician – different materials, different temperaments, yet music brings them together in one canvas.

The sleekness of jazz. The varnish. The power of being in the moment.

All art seeks to become music.



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