Sławomir Pawszak, Untitled from the Amalgamate series, 2020, glazed porcelain 25,5 x 25,5 x 4 cm. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Bartosz Górka
On the occasion of Sławomir Pawszak’s solo exhibition
Amalgamate at BWA Warszawa, we are featuring a series of photos from his studio to disclose the artist's painterly practice. The exhibition is accompanied by a conversation between the artist and Monika Čejková, curator of the show based in Prague, Czechia.
First of all, it’s striking how much time people spend viewing photos on social media every day, how much time a stereotypical person spends interacting with the flat images moving across the screen. This is a puzzling problem for me as a painter. We live more than ever in a world of flat pictures. The amount of images and visual data that we absorb during one day exceeds the number of images that a peasant at the medieval times saw during his entire life. The attitude towards this pressing mass of images is one of the topics I am interested in. I work using large collections of photos which I download from the internet, then I group them into categories based on various topics which I think have a certain common denominator. It can be any feature or concept, such as heavy, swollen or falling, heat. When I have a set ready, I start painting a picture that will ultimately be a unified portrait for the whole group of photos. I want it to reflect what I feel as I look at all the selected photographs. What is presented in individual photos does not matter. It is some way to deal with the vast quantity of images we are dealing with, says Pawszak.
Photo by Ewelina Jasińska
Photo by Ewelina Jasińska
Sławomir Pawszak, Untitled, 2020, ink, acrylic and oil on canvas, 190 x 120 cm. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Ewelina Jasińska
Sławomir Pawszak, Untitled, 2020, pigment print, ed. 3 + 1 AP, 87 x 63 cm. Courtesy of the artist
Photo by Ewelina Jasińska
Sławomir Pawszak, Untitled, 2019, glazed porcelain, 27 x 18 x 2 cm. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Bartosz Górka
Photo by Ewelina Jasińska
Photo by Ewelina Jasińska
SŁAWOMIR PAWSZAK graduated in painting under Prof. Leon Tarasewicz. His works deal with the theme of painting and being a painter. He avoids narratives, whilst emphasising that his paintings aim at representation. His work has been widely presented and is kept in many collections, including that of the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw. He lives and works in Warsaw, Poland.
pawszak.com
© 2020, SŁAWOMIR PAWSZAK, MONIKA ČEJKOVÁ
& GUEST ROOMS
