ART
Art of the Real

24 October 2002

An exhibition of works by Tomasz Ciecierski has been on display at the Foksal Gallery since Oct. 10.

The artist was born in 1945 in Cracow and graduated from the Fine Arts Academy in Warsaw in 1971. He taught there through 1985. His works have been presented at numerous individual and collective exhibitions in Europe. Ciecierski lives and works in Warsaw.

The exhibition features Ciecierski's latest works devoted to the process of painting. The works presented are a dialogue with the series of "paintings on painting," started in the early 1970s, recording the process of the creation of a work of art.

The most spectacular item is a mosaic of several hundred tiny photographs of a washbasin with colored water used to clean brushes. Each photo is different. Put together, they form a beautiful picture in which you first of all notice an abstract composition of shapes and colors and only then realize that it all records a prosaic activity which any painter does hundreds of times.

The other work is a huge canvas on which the artist placed patterns used by painters to select the right paint, brush and palette-knife. Bits of promotional items of paint-producing companies are accompanied by small l
andscapes—produced using the oil paints.

Ciecierski has used the theme of landscape in his works for the second time. The artist plays tricks on the viewer. Photos of previously painted oils are set against real canvases covered with one color and the other way round—photos of monochromatic canvases form compositions with painted landscapes. Many artists and critics have been taken in by Ciecierski's illusions.

The exhibition is open through Nov. 15, Mon.-Fri. 12-5 p.m. Admission is free.

Foksal Gallery, 1/4 Foksal St., tel. (+48-22) 827-62-43.

Reproduced with
permission from
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