If the criteria for being an artist were based
on maintaining an individual point of view and
defining it by equally individual visual language,
I would place myself back in the mid-eighties
where my big journey started. Just imagine a
group of friends studying together under the
roof of The Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw,
one of the biggest cities in Poland, a country
those days plagued by political crisis. In times
like this the last thing people care about is
art and as silly as it may look now, our professors
were no exception. But for us it was a long
awaited paradise. The Luxus (‘luxury’)
art group was created out of funny smelling
smoke and other even more funny substances.
Anything original and weird enough to match
our special taste was acceptable.
Usually, situations like this stimulate my
intellect perfectly. I simply decided to stop
questioning myself about ‘what?"
and ‘why?’ and let intuition and
pure imagination work. The true seeds of creativity
were planted and I started to exercise my freedom.
My favorite medium was "rediscovered,"
stemming from a childhood love of drawing on
magazines and newspapers. Today I jokingly call
it ‘hand made Photoshop.’ Technically
speaking it was the irritatingly simple process
of removing parts of photographic images (usually
from glossy magazines or posters) with pencil
erasers or small amounts of white spirits and
working on the erased space with pencil and
brush. The photography referred to ‘objective’
reality and by blending it with my interpretation
of the invisible realm I was hoping to get a
picture closer to true. Despite the huge benefit
my country could have received from this unscientific
research, after a few exhibitions the only critique
offered was from mental health institutions.
So I left Poland with a small rucksack on my
back, $60 in one pocket and a divorce paper
in other.
I left everything I loved to find happiness
in a better part of the world, ending up in
London. Unfortunately, it took me a few years
to find out how naive I was. Suddenly, the most
unthinkable professions, such as washing dishes,
constructing ceilings or pulling ropes on theater
fly floors were my daily pastime. I loved the
arts, but simply couldn’t afford to create.
However, everything in life is impermanent and
being selected by nature as a bit more than
average spiritually, I didn’t let myself
down completely. Buddhism had all the answers
I needed and through it my real, inner evolution
began. After fifteen years break I’m coming
back to enjoy being part of the art community
and to share my visions again. The only thing
I expect is a simple, non-analytical gaze.
I always treated art as the one of highest
forms of communication. There are unanswered
questions in every one’s mind. Most of
them are never revealed. I am trying to understand
and portray existence in a very intuitive way,
leaving behind the necessity of investigating
and analyzing. Just passing by carefully.
To me creating is a space where every second
can be extended to an hour long contemplation—effortless
concentration blessed by intellectually unpolluted
vision. In a natural way form over takes the
subject. Unknown harmony is born and able to
exist on its own. It always feels to me like
being a messenger only.