BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice

“Existential condition of contemporary artists has perfectly been expressed by Krystian Lupa, the director: ‘The world to the man has ceased to be a cozy home. Young people are facing the reality which overburdens them, monstrous and alien, and such are experiences of young artists looking for the new expression.’

Zbigniew Blukacz very consequently does not head the realms of fashionable topics, but rather wants to turn back time, and this is not the sort of surrender that leads to more traditional imaging. It is a peculiar chronicle of experiences recording the attempts to find one’s identity with nature, and the right place in its rhythm. It takes place in the world of profound feelings that stay away of journalistic immediacy. Very early did Zbyszek build up a philosophy of his own, thus he does not now need to tune himself to what is blown in fashions.

He actually represents a style very camerated, cultivated by Zbigniew Blukacz alone, a style which follows neither fashions nor interests. He offers his very personal point of view to the space; watching his paintings we are presented with the feeling of an unusual trip across different shades of landscape. He leaves into nature towards the mystical land of freedom, happiness, and meditation. His interpretation of landscape is deeply thoughtful, it provides us with a new understanding of time, it operates with nuances, subtleties, and whisper. It is a run-away into the land of peace, absolution, goodness, resting and reflection. His art gives us inspiration, enriches our spirits, and brings on some mystery. In his paintings we often find forms of sharp rocks, waterfalls, wild nature, puddles, roads, and fields reaching the skyline; the sun passing through the trees and entangled bushes. He introduces us to the winding, vivid maze of memories, imagination, feelings, and also daily facts of old that co-exist with what is happening now. On his canvas, we experience a surprising dialogue between passion and reserved observation and visual play. The world of these paintings is made with simple means: colour, light, facture. The planes shine on and off again and again. It is mostly the light that he uses especially well; the light which circulates, pulsates, and brings out what is the most important. It is the kind of narration seemingly realistic, in which the transformation of nature leads to organic abstraction. To a large extent the paintings are transposition of nature freed of any particular form, they constitute a magical universe of brilliant colours. For me Zbyszek remains one of the very few who holds the key to that world. I am also convinced that it is the talent which could find its right place in any epoch.

Large formats quite frequently determine the way canvases are received and seen. On the one hand they enforce physical distance, and on the other hand a distance of time, one which is necessary to understand the whole. At one point, they let the receiver come into the space of the picture, which metaphorically and literally is a screen which opens up to a new reality.
   This is an autonomous world, but also a world which is open an conscious of it tradition. Zbyszek sometimes makes us think of his landscapes in a nostalgic, sentimental way, bringing on the views of the past. His memories are joyous, he takes care of them, much too often idealizes the returns to his childhood, family, and even recent holidays, and the wild gardens he treats like a part of home, like an inside full of private corners. He makes us realize that we need tenderness, that the world is not perfect, that beauty exists, and we need beauty, because without it life is deprived of taste. In his paintings we can feel that life is not for nothing. And this is continuous affirmation of life; life of which the Decalogue has not been yet erased.

The stand Zbyszek takes symbolizes also the return to the times when love between the artist and his painting was still alive. There is no cynicism in this attitude; there is only passion that emanates — and his art is not artificial.

In Zbyszek’s painting the pictorial layer is as significant as the semantic one. Please reflect over these cycles. What a lot of mysteries are hidden in the ‘Corner’, what a beautiful escape into the times that have passed is ‘The Time of Swings’, what escapism speaks through the paintings ‘Odyssey’, ‘Waterfalls’, ‘Ireland’, ‘Like Birds’, or all those mysterious gardens from lighted spaces to the colours of autumn.

In such a way we can long quote up till the last cycle connected with the road. It is something more than just a landscape with a railway track. It is an open space — it is infinity. This railway line elicits from us reflection upon the time that passes too quickly for us. We are given a space to make, and these lines mark our path; will we manage to do certain things? Or maybe we have already missed our train? Or maybe it will somehow come and take us to some new and better destination?

And so, Zbyszek keeps showing us the paintings words seem too small to embrace, so what we are left with is not merely to sustain at understanding — we have to feel!

And one more thing. Watching what is coming on in the new art, Zbyszek consistently tries to provide us with the belief in the image of the world on canvas. It is this exhibition that the very existence of the world of paintings depends on. I think that this is the exhibition that will lead to the reconstruction of the failed trust in the art of painting, and that will overcome the crisis of a picture. I truly believe in his ‘easely’ vision of the world.”

Ireneusz Walczak
(‘The world is changing, the picture remains’)

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