Category: about the works

We come from the forests. I’m reminded of the importance of trees during the sweltering days of summer. Even in urbanised Warsaw, I’ve learned to leap from forest to forest as I cross the city by bike. It’s precisely in these moments that trees become my refuge. They were, in fact, once our shelter.

In the painting Back To The Trees, the thickly painted surface resembles a well-loved artist’s palette. The forest is rendered dense with healthy green foliage. At its forefront stands a row of white birch trunks—paradoxically both inviting and foreboding. They might appear as pillars at the entrance to a great forest temple, or conversely, as a line of protective bars—a stark reminder that we’ve cast ourselves out, unable to return.

2003, oil on linen, 40 x 40cm

Last summer, I was invited to participate in a group exhibition centered around the theme of cats. My initial instinct was to politely decline, as I hadn’t included people or animals in my work for many years. My focus had been exclusively on symbolic landscape paintings.
However, the exhibition’s organizer reminded me of a leopard-spot painting I had created in 1995. I had always been fond of that piece, and I began to wonder whether the aspects that intrigued me most about it could be explored further. Spots, as a decorative element, have long held a significant place in art and design. Their ornate patterning is something we instinctively recognize and freely incorporate. Yet, in fine art specifically, what makes them especially compelling is the artist’s unique, individual mode of expression.
The arrangement of patterns can reflect an artist’s inner geometry or serve as an outward expression of emotion. In my 1995 painting, Patterns, I chose leopard spots—an element from the natural world that is universally familiar—while simultaneously delving into my own personal approach to pattern formation, meticulously arranging them on a small panel surface. In doing so, the painting became more than just a study of nature; it revealed something deeply personal about myself.

For the group exhibition, I decided to revisit the exploration of leopard spots, sensing that they still held great creative potential. Coincidentally, around the time I received the invitation, I was reading The Biology of Wonder by Andreas Weber. In it, I came across a fascinating section discussing the coexistence and interplay of the personal and impersonal within natural patterns—using leopard spots as an example. Inspired by this newfound biological perspective, I was eager to incorporate it into my latest painting, Unfolding Patterns (2023).

Many regularities in nature arrange themselves. The most famous example is probably the singular order of the ice crystal’s filigree, which arises without any instruction. In organisms, too, many features are self-organising: the zebra’s stripe pattern, the leopard’s spots, the veins in a leaf, the loop design of our fingertips. None are genetically fixed or specified, but rather emerge on their own according to a certain set of initial conditions. They unfold in the same way that cells grow during their development, following certain general rules of spatial and temporal arrangement. Some delightfully complex structures can arise and develop, but only if a sufficiently large number of single building blocks is involved. The American biologist and system researcher Stuart Kauffman has explored the rules leading to this amazing self-organizing complexity. He found a seamless transition from self-arranging chemical complexity to the physiological self-construction of living organisms. The most important result of Kauffman’s explorations is the claim that the ways in which complexity organizes itself may also explain the origins of individual autonomy. Autonomy, the defining criterion of organisms, seems to emulate the inherent tendency of matter to bring forward self-sufficiency through the creation of individuals. The more highly evolved a system, the stronger its capacity to shield itself from its environment and to develop self-referential behavior focused on the maintenance of the system itself. In this fashion, self-organizing systems can insulate themselves from the volatility of the exterior world and arrange their more complex structures around the intricacies of their own interior relationships. We, therefore, could say that complex structures develop a certain self-centeredness. We could also say that mere matter already shows a first tendency to manifest its own subjectivity, broadly construed. Figuratively speaking, matter opens the door to let selfhood in.

Weber, Andreas. The Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling and the Metamorphosis of Science (pp. 72-73). New Society Publishers. Kindle Edition. 

The lungs of the world were aflame as wildfires spread throughout Australia, the Amazon and California that decisive summer. At last it felt that the climate crisis was no longer something that could be debated, and the world was at a tipping point. And then, when we had scarcely caught our breath, a deadly virus began to spread across the globe. As the damaging wildfires increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere for years to come and restricted the regeneration of oxygen by eliminating trees, it was hard not to speculate that COVID-19 had arrived in retaliation, punishing our hearts and lungs. Our destructive civilisation was abruptly stopped in its tracks. Facing an unseen enemy, both alone and collectively, we journeyed inwardly through intervals of quarantines and lockdowns. Certainly, this period fostered an appreciation for that which was essential, and we gained practice in working cooperatively. Viewed from the most positive perspective, the pandemic was a golden opportunity for us to reset. But disconcertingly, something quite different emerged instead. Less than two years later, before the first buds of spring would appear, the Great Bear emerged from its cave, as nations around the globe rebounded with an even greater ferocity. Battles over territories and resources would take precedence over any desire to safeguard our planet, and humanity appeared driven to prove that we alone would be responsible for our own demise. The threat of nuclear annihilation now looms. How did we even arrive at this capacity to ensure extermination of life on Earth several times over, under the pretence of self-defence? We have grown so uncomfortable with the topic of our own death, even whilst the dark side of civilisation expedites its arrival.

Consistent in my work is the depiction of the natural world, our Mother Earth, and the celestial bodies neighbouring it. The focus is on the primordial, with the images deliberately showing a world absent of humans and other species. Consequently, the stirring question is whether they represent a time before our arrival, or conversely, one following our departure. What is certain is that they are a return to a heliocentric universe where people are no longer the centre of importance. As the darkness in the world proliferates, so does the desire for light, and amid the turbulence a sense of centredness is imperative. The art-making process, for me, is a means to realise this centredness. Symbolic painting has the advantage of allowing polarities to co-exist, thus simultaneously representing life and death, light and darkness, despair and rapture. The surfaces of many of my paintings have been recycled, scraped off and then reapplied. In some paintings, nature is reinforced in a stature of prominence, while at other times it threatens to slip away. The worked surfaces of the paintings also exist as another form of landscape, fastidiously textured, with scorched black areas, at times distressed, at other times sparkling and jewel-like. Their surfaces are a microcosm within the macrocosm. Gold, silver and pearl-white paint are mostly used in these works, suggestive of precious metals, accentuating the invaluable creative world. As the world that surrounds me fragments, in my works I strive for inner harmony, and in essence I am driven by an abiding desire to put the world back together.

On the first and second day of the lockdown, as I faced the unknown, I felt a sense of urgency to head straight for the studio and I quickly produced these works using gold and silver paper. The subject is the timeless sun, shown both in a fixed central position in the sky and also above and beyond the picture window. These images promise that above all, the light will once again appear, and so will another day.

Forests are not only visually part of the horizon but also an integral part of the extended relationship between the earth and the cosmos. Trees are responsible for releasing oxygen into the atmosphere, and when electrons in space collide with that oxygen, creating a stunning light dance, it is an emphatic reminder of their life-giving contribution to our environment. In these paintings, the trees are crowned by auras that blend into the night sky, reaching towards the extraordinary phenomenon of the aurora borealis.

During the early days of the lockdown, I envisioned the trees breathing more easily. The first drawing is of the tree I see each day from my balcony, whose green buds I watched burgeoning freely while I remained confined indoors. Later I also wanted to explore the theme of light, not only falling upon trees, but also circulating within them, and ultimately within myself. The Taoist-inspired book I was reading at that time was called The Secret of the Golden Flower. As I created these pieces, I kept in mind the quote: ‘To live in contact with the world and yet in harmony with the Light.’

I was adding the finishing touches to the night sky painting on the day Russia invaded Ukraine. What was supposed to appear on the horizon was the golden twilight of a new day, and perhaps a new age, but instead became tarnished by news of the war. In that moment I saw it as having equal potential to be a nuclear flash. I left it this way, bowing to the uncertainty that shrouds the future. It became the case, unfortunately, that whereas the pandemic inspired me to look inward and flourish in creativity, the war next door left me raw and empty, with the utmost lack of faith in humanity. For two months I found myself unable to create. Finally, upon revisiting my studio one day, it dawned on me that this war was not simply another unwelcome event, but instead a continuation of the difficult lessons in facing mortality. The first painting to emerge following this newfound realisation portrayed a battle of light and darkness which inspired the title Where Does God Hide?

I am not religious, but nor would I consider myself to be an atheist. There are a select number of experiences in my life which I feel I can revisit as if they exist in the present moment, and they represent for me a bond with the divine. There was one particular road trip through Quebec, Canada, that brought us to a charming bed and breakfast on a farmland property. We woke very early the next day to explore the grounds, and we were insistently led by the estate’s aged dog through the golden wild grass to a far corner of the farm, where we were greeted by the sight of the sun slowly emerging, its rays piercing through the trees and striking a mirror-like pond, upon which the morning mist swirled. There was a fresh scent present in the air, experienced only in such newborn moments. These two paintings are a revisitation of this precious, everlasting moment. As I reflected on our dog guide, I realised that he reminded me of an earlier dream in my life, in which I entered a backyard to discover an older, silver-haired dog with angel wings who stood in the centre of a small garden. I woke from the dream contemplating that mystifying encounter, until I eventually experienced an epiphany when I thought about the word ‘dog’ spelled in reverse.

Here are two paintings depicting the sun, one white on a gold background, and the second gold on a pearl-white background. They are primordial and reinforce an understanding that all things begin and ultimately end with the sun. These two paintings were also unique for me in that they did not follow the guidance of a reference image, but rather a strong vision in my mind.

The title of this painting, Safe Water, is intended to hold a double meaning. Safe water can be that which is safe to drink. It can also mean a secure position in a body of water where one is no longer in danger of being swept away. The association between these two meanings is, I think, poignant.

print on demand

softcover

hardcover

digital—pdf

The moon is like a lifeless large grey rock orbiting the earth. Still we sometimes deeply feel its gravitational pull, and we respond to it’s luminous appearance, as its surface reflects the light of the sun. The moon is most distinguishable during the night, but periodically appears as a faint apparition-like form during the day, and this was the inspiration for the painting. When the daytime moon is suddenly noticed in the sky, amongst the immense number of competing elements presented by the world, it seems even more enigmatic. I am taken by surprise, sometimes asking; why are you here, still, or so early, has something been forgotten, is there something important that needs to be said?

Incidentally I was born the same year that astronauts first set foot on the moon. As an artist I cannot compete with such a great scientific feat, however I do have the advantage of expressing my internal and external associations to this cosmic body through the act of painting. I realize that I cannot walk across the moon, however I wondered what would it be like to render the moon using my own hands, instead of a paint brush. I was curious to know what that experience would be like. I believe It was my first finger painting, using my hands to depict light, and this numinous entity that has captivated us since time immemorial.

There lives in me a sun-bleached memory that will never fade. As a child, I spent much of my time in the country on my grandparents’ farm. As a middle child, I often asked to stay behind when my family returned to the city—I preferred solitude and the natural world to the chaos of our urban home. Even then, I knew I belonged to a different kind of habitat, one more aligned with my inner nature.

During those stays, I enacted a symbolic ritual of departure and return. Mornings were spent around my grandparents’ home, but in the evenings, when my grandmother gave the signal, I would set out across the property to fetch my grandfather for dinner. The path was never direct—my journey wandered as I got lost in fantastical inner worlds. To me, that is the nature of any true journey: the destination is never fully predictable, nor is its arrival guaranteed. Nature invites us into that mystery.

I never take for granted how fortunate I was to grow up on a farm—an experience that is becoming increasingly rare. In this painting, I’ve used a familiar digital icon for “home,” one that recurs in computers and devices. The painting symbolizes my ongoing search for a sense of belonging and connection to nature in an increasingly technological world.

In this seascape image I have replaced seagulls with pointer cursors that I use every day enquiring into the knowledge available on the internet. The title of this symbolic painting is simply Search. It alludes to the benefits of technology in respects to learning, and access of information, as well as its ability to lure one away from their true nature, through distractions and encouraging compulsive behaviour. The cursors fade in and out of an enigmatic field of mist that hovers above the sea.

Portrayed in these artworks is what I consider to be the most significant battle of this lifetime; that between the natural environment and the ever-expanding technological world. It is a war existing without and within, transpiring in the outer physical world, as well as the internal, consisting of the psyche and spirit. The altering influence of technology is widespread.

These artworks are symbolic self portraits that bring to light this complex state of existence, attempting to both depict the current states of what is materializing around me and addressing the transformations occurring within. Painting and drawing are both exceptional personal endeavours and perhaps they are also a means of fighting back, to reclaim my true nature and that which is intrinsic.

The experience of being on a sailboat, for me, evokes a boundless freedom of spirit. Away from the solid land, being reacquainted with the immeasurable sky above, and reminded of the transformative forces of the shifting waves below, along with the pure white sail and deck illuminated by a brilliant light, I feel vitalized and free of limitations.

In this painting the boat is surrounded by a quiet, mysterious fog. Its position and relation to land become unclear. Yet once the eyes settle on the sailboat, that is reinforced by the geometric shape of the triangle, it becomes a foundation of strength. The triangle when upright can be seen to symbolize an ascension from the base-ground of life to the great clarity achieved at its peak.

Symbolically this work portrays the ongoing struggle to attain liberation in spirit while simultaneously navigating the realties of the material world.

Recently I rediscovered documentation of a favourite painting from my early professional career. This painting was the inspiration for ‘The Self At Sea’, a return to painting in oils, and more importantly prioritizing ‘self exploration’ as the focal reason in making art. The early painting was titled ‘Abandonment’ and completed in 1995. Twenty four years later I felt compelled to revisit the motif of the lone sailboat at sea, and curiously compare the two.

This series remains the most enigmatic in my body of works. The pieces were done in 1993 during my final semester at university. These creations had an unworldliness quality to them. It was an exploration so genuine because of its naivety, with the likelihood of occurring only once in this lifetime. Because I had so little understanding of my intensions, the content of the unconscious had the opportunity to freely present itself, and would over time spark an awareness of the existence of the essential Self.

What the original inspiration of these drawings share in common is an object being displaced from its natural conditions. The rugged rock found on the soft sand beneath the water, the delicate twig on the hard pavement, or the fallen tree branch stranded in a sea of grass. I came across these objects on my walks to, and from art school. Following my intuition I decided to honour these encounters as being of great symbolic importance. I trusted that they would unveil something more, perhaps a better understanding of my own relationship to the world. I collected the objects and returned to my studio to recreate similar still-life environments, to use as references for my drawings.

As these drawings painstakingly developed they seemed to take a direction of their own. They appeared to be further distancing the object from the natural world from which they had fallen, or perhaps more rightly, were returning to their true home being at one with everything in the cosmos. The backdrops, the original environment in these still-lives, gradually became less and less specific, disintegrated into something far less physical. For example the rock underwater, eventually appeared almost more like an asteroid in space, or the fallen branch transforming the grass into an emanating field of electrostatic energy. Perhaps what these drawing meant to express, is that even though seemingly out of place, at a much deeper level all things can be seen to be united through a simple relationship of matter and energy.

When looking at these works in retrospect, I also came to realize the significance of the drawings all being square with the object placed in the centre. It was only much later that I realized they were moreover functioning as mandalas. The healing power of the mandala comes from the distance to the centre-point being the same from all four sides. These simple compositions were guiding all attention to the centre, and therefore providing a sense of steadiness (within the world).

Concurrent to creating drawings I also did a set of more conceptually poetic pieces on black panels. In these works I wished to portray my interest in the marks left behind by activity in life. I was observing scratches on lacquered floors, or on windows riding buses at night, with the city lights being reflected by them. These scratches were the continually accumulating scars that are left behind, and they are the traces of life. When an artist friend of mine saw the black panel pieces he commented that their relationship to the drawings wasn’t strange at all. Where the drawings depicted an object in a field of energy, the scratched panels were simply the fields of energy sans object.

This early series, an exploration of symbolic self-portraiture, remains to me, a testament of the guiding principal of the Self. The Self, ever present, responds to the dedicated inquiry into the greater mysteries of life and oneself, through a chosen practice (such as art), and directs one to their true home.