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From 3 September to 15 October, the dark, dreamlike worlds of Professor Damian Leszczyński will fill the City Gallery in Wrocław. THEATRUM TREMENDUM brings together drawings and paintings – works that are unsettling, enigmatic and unpredictable, leading the viewer to the boundary between reality and dream, being and non-being.
Enigmatic creatures, figures of unnatural proportion and bony structure, often devoid of faces and eyes, nocturnal forests and mountain landscapes , levitating cities, ruins and mysterious gateways recur throughout the artist’s work. Blurred architectural contours, an almost monochrome palette and unreal, mist-shrouded spaces build an atmosphere of unease while inviting contemplation of the unknown and the inexplicable.
The work of Professor Damian Leszczyński, a philosopher and head of the Department of Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind at the University of Wrocław, stands as a singular phenomenon in contemporary Polish art. His paintings and drawings can be read not only as a form of artistic expression but also as an attempt to explore the limits of human consciousness, solitude and a primal existential dread. The artist’s philosophical interests are thus not without bearing on his visual language – on the contrary, they become one of its principal sources.
From the first encounter with the works on display, the Gothic emerges as a key point of reference, understood not so much as a style as a particular way of experiencing and perceiving the world. It is a sensibility focused on mystery, terror, death, metaphysics and the constant tension between what is rational and what escapes reason. Echoes of this tradition run through Leszczyński’s work, from the Romantic landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich to the contemporary visions of Zdzisław Beksiński.
THEATRUM TREMENDUM is more than an exhibition of dark imagery. Above all, it invites the viewers to confront their own imagination, fears and the need to search for meaning. Leszczyński creates spaces in which answers remain elusive and the unseen becomes as important as what is represented.
The opening of the exhibition will take place on Thursday 3 September at 6:00 p.m.
Music at the official opening: Piotr Wojtasik, Łukasz Bzowski, Igor Pietraszewski.
Curator: Mirosław Jasiński
