The miniature is a ruse – it relieves some of the responsibility, makes the composition of the painting easier, but in return, it offers intimacy.
It works both ways – it shortens the distance, since it is like a whisper, and it diminishes responsibility, since it’s so very, very small...
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Katarzyna Karpowicz
Years ago, while reading Czesław Miłosz’s essay collection The Garden of Science, I came across a chapter titled ‘SALIGIA’. I didn’t know the word, so I dove in eagerly, and it turned out that it was a word from the Middle Ages, made up by the first letters of the seven capital sins.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Julia Medyńska
They meet under a sky so menacing that there is no doubt that it foretells extinction, it is a sky of apocalypse, a sky of the end of the world, an inevitable sky.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Katarzyna Karpowicz
Julia Medyńska has complete control over her painting matter, despite giving it infinite freedom and lightness. Perhaps the word irreverence, or even flippancy, could be applied here. This is what I feel when I look at these otherwise very diverse but always recognisable images of hers.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Julia Medyńska
She’s a sculptor for whom the human body is a set of solids which, in spite of changing configurations, never cease to be solids.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Joanna Mieszko-Nita
We wear it under our skin, which is plausibly the most fascinating phenomenon in these circumstances: we are a constant and continuously recurring, live symbol of our own transience, the closest and handiest exemplum of the situation. We never part with it, and if we eventually do, it means we cease to exist...
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Łukasz Huculak
If Mr. Kasprzyk was asked how to paint a good picture, he would not be able to give an answer, which is understandable, but at the same time, he would tell you to listen to a good music, as this is very helpful while painting.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Mikołaj Kasprzyk
Painting music is reconciling the impossible and yet great many artists have been trying to cope with the utopian task since a very long time ago. Music is immaterial and the plastic arts exist only in the material.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Krzysztof Kokoryn
"There’s no-one there". This phrase reappears like a song chorus across a few hundred pages of Georges Perec’s novel La Vie mode d’emploi [Life. Instructions for use]. Not infrequently, apartments furnished with objects, whose detailed descriptions can be found there, appear empty. Or perhaps, not really empty: there’s a plenty of objects indeed, but – there’s no-one.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Adam Patrzyk
Seeing things as they are. Such a task is easy to conceive, almost natural, for it boils down to seeing with one’s own eyes whatever appears in front of them. The whole thing, however, is entirely different when it comes to these things being seen by a painter, just in order for him or her to paint them instantly afterwards.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Tomasz Karabowicz
As is known, there’s no geometry of the eye. What Małgorzata Jastrzębska paints is something I’m inclined to call a ‘geometry of the eye’ all the same.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Małgorzata Jastrzębska
A painting exists physically, but it is generally considered to be a different kind of object from others known to us from everyday experience, even if it represents the most ordinary things. "Although canvas and paints (...) belong to the world, the painter takes them out from among things: because he has chosen them and arranged them according to a secret(...)". To us, three words are significant in this quotation: chose, arranged, secret.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Łukasz Huculak
Flowers have remained. At an earlier stage, there were also other themes of Beata Murawska's paintings, yet in time, they have disappeared, and flowers have taken precedence. Their scales are different; sometimes, their sizes can be plainly monstrous, but they do not trigger panic: on the contrary, they seem to be attracting into the depths of the paintings, particularly when the latter's format is so large.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Beata Murawska
Krzysztof Kokoryn did not know about his calling as a painter at the very outset. Originally, he was sure he was going to become a musician. He had even had some achievements in the field of music. But, he eventually decided to try and take his entrance exam for the Fine Arts Academy.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Krzysztof Kokoryn
Painting does not have to tell stories or take pictures; its objectives are deeper and purer: it gives you an opportunity to express yourself personally.
Zofia Matuszczyk-Cygańska
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Zofia Matuszczyk-Cygańska
No doubt, for Katarzyna Jędrysik-Castellini, the painting tradition is very important. With her eyes fixed on this tradition, she paints her paintings which she practically makes timeless in a very thoughtful manner, as if those scenes could be happening at any time, always, or, for ages now. The Mediterranean climate with which those canvases emanate, as do the scenes having become their subjects, is definitely beneficial to it.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Katarzyna Castellini
In a conversation with the artist, art critic Bogusław Deptuła deconstructs her paintings, asking simple questions: what is a mirror, what is a mask, what is a circus?
Interview by Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Katarzyna Karpowicz
My painting evolved from landscape and these hues are the result of observation of nature. Although it is far from realism, my painting emerged as a result of contact with real landscape.
Interview by Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Sebastian Skoczylas
Painting a man from nature and painting his essence is a completely different story. It’s not important what you see, but what you know about the person.
Interview by Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Katarzyna Karpowicz
Subconsciously I yearn for sunsets with their pinkish sky and sea. It’s a synonym of the greatest kitsch. Lately I have been painting a piece of sky for approximately six months. Just a bridge, a river and a sunset and yet I cannot complete it. It’s a matter of talent I guess...
Interview by Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Adam Patrzyk
I have always liked colours that are toned down. And even though it sounds like some kind of amateur psychology, I don't like anything too strong. It's the same with sounds, music, behaviour.
Interview by Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Mikołaj Kasprzyk
When I still painted at the academy, which I don’t do any more, I was regarded as an insane individual who paints instead of sitting and talking like everyone else. I do not consider myself particularly hard-working. When you paint, you just have to work to achieve something.
Interview by Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Aleksandra Waliszewska
Long ago I came to the conclusion that progress in art is impossible in the sense in which it exists in exact sciences, because the aims of artists in the past and today are the same.
Interview by Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Łukasz Huculak
I knew I wanted to be an artist from my earliest years. My father, who was related to Marcello Bacciarelli, was a good draughtsman himself and he wanted me to become a portrait painter, like the famous relative of ours. So, he would send me to a ‘painting nursery’ in the small town we lived in.
Interview by Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Zofia Matuszczyk-Cygańska
We may not fully understand the eponymous seven of Saligia, but perhaps it’s better if they remain a little enigmatic and understated, creating the opportunity for many diverse answers. After all, the titles remain, and they will prompt viewers to find the ethical and eschatological content of these canvasses.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Julia Medyńska
Jacek Obraniak lists among the important phenomena for him: Lynch, Hasior, the Nowa Huta Group, each of these references carries a different indication that can, I think, be found in these paintings.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Jacek Obraniak
Ignacy Tybor actually mentions one name and it may be somewhat surprising: Bruno Schulz. Jerzy Ficowski called his book about this writer and artist "Regions of Great Heresy" and something poetic and heretical can be seen in these paintings.
By Bogusław Deptuła
Artist: Ignacy Tybor
