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From 1 December, the rooms in the City Gallery in Wrocław will fill up with “pictures non pictures” by Tomasz Domański. These pieces owe their special name to a departure from the classic painting technique to a sculptural treatment of the plane.
In his “pictures-non-pictures”, Tomasz Domański explores the content-related and creative potential of matter. As in his art, he uses an exceptionally rich and diverse spectrum of materials. He creatively recycles substances and objects that pass as worthless. Thus, he is riveted by organic waste, remains, accidentally found products of nature, used products or artefacts of industrialised, urban life. By elevating mediocre matter to the rank of art, the artist somehow elevates the banal, the rejected and the matter considered useless.
Domański’s sculptural approach to looking at the image and his absolute trust in the narrative power of material place his creative activity at the intersection of such artistic phenomena as arte povera (poor art) and matter painting. For, as is the case for both these trends, in “pictures non pictures” the material is the proper carrier of content – an intrinsic medium, which in its very symbolism and association shapes the idiosyncrasy of the message.
By incorporating seemingly worthless matter into an artistic context, it gets in a way ritually restored to life. This creative practice is underpinned by Domanski’s affirmative attitude towards time conceived cyclically. This is his reference to the circular rhythm of nature with its alternating cycles of birth and death. Thus, although the artist speaks as an unwitting representative of anthropocentric civilisation, through his art he strives to recreate this spiritual harmony and wholeness induced by contact with nature, which is extremely difficult in our technicised and industrialised era. In addition, by exploring the symbolic and magical significance of the raw materials and objects he uses, Domański, as it were, takes up the role of a mystic who ritually integrates the distant universes of pragmatic and fast-paced modernity with the spiritualised world of nature.
The exhibition is on display until 28 December 2023.
TOMASZ DOMAŃSKI was born in 1962 in Giżycko. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław in 1993, obtaining a degree in sculpture. In 2003, he defended his doctoral thesis on ephemeral sculpture as a relative monument. He has produced sculptures, installations, objects, performances, drawings and photographs. Domański works mostly with natural materials: water, ice, fire, wood, straw, ash and metal, and uses the processes inherent in them. Films and animations are integral elements of his numerous works. He studied at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi from 1995 to 1996. Five-time scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Domański has been recognised by several other foundations and institutions, such as the Pollock-Krasner from New York (twice), the Laurenz Foundation from Basel, twice the Montag Stiftung from Bonn, CEC ArtsLink from New York, twice UNESCO-Aschberg from Paris, KulturKontakt from Vienna, the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation from Berlin, Adolph and Esther Gottlieb from New York. Nominated for the “Polityka” Passport in 1997, the artist represented Poland at the 9th Art Triennale in New Delhi the same year. His works can be found in prominent collections in Poland, most notably in the Lower Silesian Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, the National Museum, the Contemporary Museum in Wrocław and the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko.
