The tension, between the mechanical or automatic nature of a painterly act and the issue of image as representation, characteristic of many of his works, is further developed in Bujnowski's recent paintings. The formal means at work here are near-perfect. The monumental canvases from the Eye-Sockets series seduce with the mimetic nature of the painterly layer: the thin turpentine-diluted paint soaks into the surface unrestrained, offering an ideal replica of the texture of a coarse concrete wall. The dark reflective gaping holes of windows are a witty quote from the artist's massive earlier series Lamp Black, where the physical properties of paint defined the spatial depth, narrative, and sense of a painting. At the same time, the modest range of means comes together to form an unquestionably realist whole. The cool architectural shots depict fragments of an unfinished condominium, calling upon not only the current aura of the crisis-struck construction industry, but also the genuinely Polish topos of the "unfinished house", a symbol of unbridled aspirations confronted with limited possibilities, passionate enthusiasm and everyday neglect, money and its lack.
The Gambler, on the other hand, is a play on the anti-utilitarian aspect of art. The photographs depict various metal objects of technical use, their exact scale and function unclear, possibly fragments of machines or mechanical parts. In fact, these are abstract items of the artist's own design, one could even call them "sculptures" noting some semblances to Katarzyna Kobro's constructivist compositions. Furnishing these shapes with a pseudo-functional character, Bujnowski plays with the tradition of modernism and minimalism, yet, at the same time, dematerializes them - we are no longer witnessing objects, but their photographs, presented in a slideshow. The items, though designed by the artist and manufactured by the father of the eponymous gambler and debtor, inhabit the realm of imagination, potential form and illusion. Art here appears as a peculiar afterimage, accompanying day-to-day ordinary work and mundane everyday objects.
The Fog marks the artist's somewhat perverse return to one of the most common painterly themes - landscape. Having made several attempts in the genre, Bujnowski most often approached it as an exploration into the varying structural capabilities of a painting. This time, however, the effect is undeniably nostalgic, though physically palpable the landscape remains beyond visual grasp. The distance and the staged relationship between the viewer and the landscape vanishes. The Fog pulls the viewer in, reducing the purely visual pleasure of a painting for the sake of an awareness of incompleteness. As if incidentally, The Fog binds together other works in the exhibition, offering at the midpoint between winter and spring, a specific, foggy, and thus 'non-commercial', image of reality.
Opening of the exhibition: March 27, 2010, at 6:00 PM.
Open until April 30, 2010.
Galeria "Raster"
Hoża 42 m. 8, 00-516 Warsaw
run by: Łukasz Gorczyca, Michał Kaczyński
www.raster.art.pl
Source: www.raster.art.pl