Body-Images / Tomek Baran, gościnnie: Rafał Domagała, Maria Loboda, Olex / Tomek Baran, guests: Rafał Domagała, Maria Loboda, Olex

Tomek Baran, gościnnie: Rafał Domagała, Maria Loboda, Olex / Tomek Baran, guests: Rafał Domagała, Maria Loboda, Olex

Curator: Adam Andrzejewski I

n his latest body of work, Tomek Baran meditates on the relations between image, space, and corporeality. Coining the neologism Body-Image, he explores a conception of the corporeality of artworks, understood not as an analogue of the human body, but as the artwork's own body per se. Above all, paintings simply are. They occupy space, press against it, and voraciously seek to claim it as their own. The viewer is invited to enter into dialogue with them— to listen, learn, and at times resist. Body-Images emerge through irregular forms, their impulse to exceed the conventional boundaries of the stretcher, and their desire to extend the limits of their own existence. The viewer must negotiate a place within their presence, for the Body-Image tends to dominate the space it inhabits. Body-Images also reveal. They whisper what may lie "beneath their skin": their internal organs, concealed ideas, motivations, or emotions. Baran constructs corporeality not only through the painting's three-dimensionality, but also through the subtle yet continuous dialogue unfolding between the works themselves.