ABOUT EXHIBITION

Standing on an empty plane, stretching endlessly, it crushes loneliness, and fear leads to madness. The one who was the first to drive four piles and join them together in a house has done a great deed of individual separation of his existence from the Unable to embrace, traverse, unite. He shaped his own space, his own space. He found a measure for himself. These words by Alfred Kuhn from 1930 are always relevant. Everyone, consciously or not, determines his own safe space. For the artists who belonged to the Kazimierz Confraternity of Art, this space, whether in a mental or physical sense, has become Kazimierz Dolny. And there is nothing strange about it. The artistic history of this place shows that everyone from the realists to the avant-garde came here. To write about genius loci is not enough. We have to admit that Kazimierz would not be unique if it were not for the writers, musicians and artists. Subsequent generations of painters were building the artistic tradition of the town. It is excellent that there is still a group that marks this place with art. With the awareness of tradition, but independently, in their own way. This limited space reveals the limitless artistic possibilities and unlimited painting interpretations. This diversity is beautiful and good. The artists, speaking through their own expression, take up important problems. Artistic solutions are combined with a commentary on the inner reality and the world around us. For all Confraters, the artistic autonomy of a painting is important, with an inevitable record of ideas. However, everyone shows the world in its various aspects. When they look at the place, they create a different record of it, and from this a real multi-threaded book is created. Krzysztof Krzyr Raczynski has been a strong color designer of landscapes. He introduces a geometric order as though he were looking for order in the surrounding world. Plates, rhythms, bevels have been plastically reinforced. One feels the fleshiness of paint and texture of the canvas. By the same token, the artist has stressed the contrast between the reality and the picture, thus undermining mimeticism.
If the geometric rigour, frequently shaken, is the structure of the world, then undoubtedly, a whole sphere of sensations and emotions have been superimposed on it. And then a fullness is created. Agnieszka Mitura has tried to bring out this sphere and write it down in a universal way so as to grasp specific notions. And the artist succeeds in this. Most frequently, the viewer does not speak - I see a river, a meadow, a forest, but he sees nostalgia, mystery, joy, sadness. Mitura does not reduce the landscape to the laws of nature, but humanizes it. It is devoid of concreteness, it avoids details and with these insinuations it stimulates associations. Zbigniew Strzyżyński leads the landscape to the border where the balancing reality leans towards unreality. The artist asks a question whether art can touch the spiritual? Certainly, Strzyżyński's painting suggests this spirituality. Through cracks, cracks, we want to look inside, as though we were expecting to see what is a mystery to us, something untouchable. Jerzy Krzysztoporski has materialized this transcendence. The divinity, which is light, is transformed into water, and this one falling from the mountain like a waterfall connects us with God. There is a theology here, presented in a beautiful metaphor. But the main protagonist is a man entangled in metaphorical constellations. The world of Krzysztaporski transforms into poetry to capture the tiniest nuances of it. Man is spirituality and carnality. And even when Plato said that the soul is trapped in the body, he admitted that we must take care of its beauty. Mariusz Płoszaj-Mazurek sees the uniqueness of women, bringing their corporeality to sensuality, which results from natural sexuality for man. The artist has stressed it not only with his gesture, body arrangement, but also with his clothes or gadgets. We see not only the play on form, but above all the game where two elements collide: male and female - embodied in the artist. Magdalena Brennenstuhl has created a different world. She has built it with spots, introduced it with a soft line. This is a reality constructed of silhouettes, synthetic, with clear elements commenting on the whole. We feel anxiety, we know that the world is composed of good and evil. The works by the artist remind us that we have to be careful in this world. Brennenstuhl operates with a sign that defines reality.

Let's go back to the places. They are meaningful, they have their own identity. Konrad Kucza-Kuczyński is looking for this identity. He shows the structure of the landscape or the architecture filling in the work, stopping them in time. The artist presents places that he reads as his own. He records them in his memory and recreates without any unnecessary details what remains most important in it. The works by Kuczy-Kuczyński show an important self - world relation for humans. It is like a Buberowski dialogue, a meeting where one experiences full authenticity.

Marek Andała also looks at the surrounding reality. He cuts out a small fragment of it, the beauty of which lies in its beauty and imperfections. An old door, a shredded wall, decayed wood are marked with some history, they become a separate entity that speaks about time, passing or even passing away. Strong contrasts and luminosity give nobility and at the same time bring out unreality.

This tiny point on the ground that grows and covers the whole map, as Anatol Stern wrote about Kazimierz Dolny, brings together artists who identify themselves fully with this place, but who, departing from the casual nature of art, belong to art in general.

Dorota Seweryn Puchalska