ASMR U!

Marta Antoniak, Tomek Baran, Michael Biber, Jakub Ciężki, Krzysztof Mętel, Mateusz Piestrak, Przemek Pyszczek, Grzegorz Siembida, Agnieszka Szostek, Małgorzata Widomska, Natalia Załuska

Curator: Tomek Baran

Hello, on this autumn afternoon, I would like to invite you to an exhibition I have been working on for some time. Once, on a night similar to this one, I began to make plans for the future. Wanting to experience something new, I started dreaming of an exhibition where I would showcase not my own works, but those of my friends and acquaintances. The exhibition is a visual story about collection and the collecting of reflections. The works of those I present here are, at least in part, a reflection of my own interests, fascinations, and inquiries in painting. I do not claim to express any new ideas, nor do I try to define the boundaries of painting. I simply want to show you a collection of works that, in my opinion, connect beautifully, intertwining and reflecting off each other, creating an interesting narrative.

Upon entering the gallery, Natalia Załuska welcomes us with an untitled piece. Natalia works in collage using materials such as cardboard, paper, wood, and acrylics. The abstract composition, consisting of geometric figures in light tones, invites us to move deeper into the exhibition. Right behind Natalia, on the right side near the kitchen, you’ll find my painting titled "Blue Oyster," made with enamel and oil on canvas, which tells the story of a gay bar I saw in a film on television in the early 90s.

Further ahead, you will encounter a piece by Michael Biber, an untitled painting on paper created with oil stick paints and an airbrush, stretched on a frame made from branches. It reminds me of a hut, a painterly screen. An old story is covered, and a new one is revealed. Moving past Michael’s piece and looking to the right, you will spot a large-format painting by Jakub Ciężki titled "Ecstasy," painted in the Hard Edge Painting style. It evokes the image of light coming from stars in a dark blue sky. The rays from Jakub's painting are so strong that they merge with the light in Mateusz Piestrak’s untitled painting. On this piece, we see an abstract form that reminds me of a six-fingered hand, architecture, or simply a piece of cardboard casting a large shadow. Both artists work in acrylic.

Emerging from the shadow of Mateusz’s painting, your gaze will fall on a small, shiny, light-reflecting painting by Marta Antoniak titled "Baubles." Made from epoxy resin and broken Christmas baubles, among which there is a squirrel winking at you. Before you continue, please look through the window, where you will spot a sculpture by Przemek Pyszczek titled "Playground Structure (Extended Rod)." Made of metal and covered in enamel, its geometric form reminds me of playgrounds where I played as a child. Continuing on, on the left, you will see a painting by Małgorzata Widomska, executed in oil on canvas. Minimalist, with primary colors in mind, featuring a beautiful Venetian red in the center and a complementary green line at the top, it is titled "Woman in Two Dimensions." Across from Małgorzata's painting, another piece by Marta Antoniak beckons you – a bas-relief titled "Ancient Spring," sprinkled with glitter, made from acrylic casts of masks, fairy-tale figures, and floral forms. Next to Marta's work, hanging from chains from the ceiling to the floor, is an installation by Agnieszka Szostek titled "Why to Age Cheese in Cave." These skins, as the artist describes them, are prints on paper, glued onto plastic sheets, and then scraped off again. They resemble damp cave walls, stalactites, and stalagmites.

Exiting Agnieszka's cave, to the left, you will see a painting by Krzysztof Mętel, where at the bottom, you will find a fragment of an old painting by Mateusz Piestrak, mentioned earlier. Krzysztof himself says that he enjoys the tension between the result, which is something reminiscent of metaphysics or something eschatological, the poetics of light, and the rather cold and rational process that allows the work to be called realistic or even a sculpture with a flat shape. Lastly, there is a painting by Grzegorz Siembida, "Untitled." This oil on canvas, inspired by comic book panels, uses white lines to define the frames of the story. The tangled colors and lines of this abstract narrative, where the white divisions have already blurred... you are now part of this story.