Sun Came First
The sun came first, out of dust and gas, it emerged from the chaos. In our search for the primordial beginning, we direct our gaze at it, while the perpetual balancing between light and darkness frames the narrative of the exhibition. The starting point is the work of Teofil Ociepka, whose works are juxtaposed with those of contemporary artists: Bart艂omiej Hajduk and Tomasz Mro虂z. Our route is marked by two intersecting paths: the former related to fantastic visions, which Ociepka owed to his study of occult texts, Polish folklore, folk tales and parables, and the latter connected with the moralising overtones of the artist鈥檚 work under the influence of the Catholic tradition and Polish legends.
The duality of good and evil, night and day, testimony and fable, the mundane and the sacred have become the key to reading the artists鈥� works. The works are morality plays in their fantastic yet concrete nature. Recorded through martyrological biblical stories, yarns of storytellers or the astrophysical world, they contain a didactic element. The fictional world is governed by an unknown being, animals come out of the woods and from under the ground, monsters emerge from the water, there are planets, and the rules governing this imaginary place are as strict as those of the biblical stories, and, like them, give the viewer a severe reprimand.
Skills or education do not play a role in the world of dogma. The concurrence of non- professional art with contemporary art stops being a kind of faux pas; after all, Bart艂omiej Hajduk and Tomasz Mro虂z鈥檚 works oscillate around forms found in Ociepka鈥檚 paintings as well as in vernacular art. The multilayered dialogue between the artists also marks the beginning of a reflection on a topic that is still relevant today 鈥� the place of amateur artists in the history of art and, consequently, their influence on the work of later generations.
The sun came first, out of dust and gas, it emerged from the chaos. In our search for the primordial beginning, we direct our gaze at it, while the perpetual balancing between light and darkness frames the narrative of the exhibition. The starting point is the work of Teofil Ociepka, whose works are juxtaposed with those of contemporary artists: Bart艂omiej Hajduk and Tomasz Mro虂z. Our route is marked by two intersecting paths: the former related to fantastic visions, which Ociepka owed to his study of occult texts, Polish folklore, folk tales and parables, and the latter connected with the moralising overtones of the artist鈥檚 work under the influence of the Catholic tradition and Polish legends.
The duality of good and evil, night and day, testimony and fable, the mundane and the sacred have become the key to reading the artists鈥� works. The works are morality plays in their fantastic yet concrete nature. Recorded through martyrological biblical stories, yarns of storytellers or the astrophysical world, they contain a didactic element. The fictional world is governed by an unknown being, animals come out of the woods and from under the ground, monsters emerge from the water, there are planets, and the rules governing this imaginary place are as strict as those of the biblical stories, and, like them, give the viewer a severe reprimand.
Skills or education do not play a role in the world of dogma. The concurrence of non- professional art with contemporary art stops being a kind of faux pas; after all, Bart艂omiej Hajduk and Tomasz Mro虂z鈥檚 works oscillate around forms found in Ociepka鈥檚 paintings as well as in vernacular art. The multilayered dialogue between the artists also marks the beginning of a reflection on a topic that is still relevant today 鈥� the place of amateur artists in the history of art and, consequently, their influence on the work of later generations.
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