My pictures, and especially those which
i painted after 1977, penetrate the regions of conceptions defined
commonly as "literary" and, when regarding themes, connected
with representations inspired the sacred
contents. Those contents are widely known thus receivers
can easily perceive et least the first meaning layer
of a painting. This meaning is an invitation to that
what is neither a painting nor a plot content of a painting...
In the last decades, the heaviest
objection, a painter could face was the objection that his paintings were
literary and included extra-artistic contents. Such an
opinion valued artist's creativity be worse,
non-modern, non-vanguard...That objection was often connected
with an objection of commercialism,
and the weight of such objections was too big for some
persons to get rid of them. Everybody complained
about fact that they were not vanguard. A widespread
disease of being in vanguard created
a type of an artist wanderer of vanguard carefully watching
"which way the wind blows" just to give up
his artistic opinions to follow promptly the mirage of
a novelty. Those were days when a new one meant
a better, up-to-date, vanguard one.
Artists, focused on the artistic expression
language, still tracked the escaping specters of extra-artistic
contents (matters) in search of a pure artistic formula.
In several decades this language was reduced to some
elementary articulations which finally were also reduced
to face the negation of any representation.
as a graduate of artistic college I did
the same, however I discovered soon that the way of vanguard
was fruitless and it was no use making efforts only walk
at the head of the new art. For me,
the basic experience, which I did not undergo suddenly,
was deep studying the old masters' art first
in reproductions and then, if possible, in originals,
I used to look closely at old paintings for hours and at last
I understood that all what the new art fought for was
included in the old, however it was richer,
more mature and more genuine...
The language of painting, the artistic language
of the old masters is not primitive at all, or limited,
or unaware, but on the contrary that was a vanguard art
using the artistic language to basic articulations
of plastic slang or perhaps some kind of coded language
understandable only to the circle
of the vanguard recidivists. When analyzing old paintings
I realized that their "literary character"
constitutes only the first meaning layer of work of which
may lead an observer beyond the included
representations. I started to understand that neither
a plot layer nor an artistic language layer of painting
were an essential element of the art I look for. An essential
area regarding a paintings behind these
two layers. this is an area beyond any imagination, thus
it provides with evtra-plot and
extra-artistic experiences. The art is beyond that what
is a painting!
Poetry, fine arts, music - they are only different
materialization of the art, different functions,
different languages. The bigger the art, the more we
are not able to say about it, it is not what
we consider it like a graphic sign "A" or a phone "a",
but to reach such an understanding one must pass
all rungs of representation without the need of reducing
anything. in order an art receiver could move
all areas of literary contents and artistic language,
in the area of own imagination.
Hence, not the reduction of imagination, but its development
may lead a receive to overcome
his imagination to reach new values of experience blurring
that what is subjective and objective,
i.e. the reality... How is it refereed to my painting
- I leave the estimation to those will visit the gallery.
I am not going to explain my paintings, but I would like
to awake the imagination of other people,
because is nothing more than a way of existence...
author of gallery - Henryk Jan Baca
gallery