In the picture: A. Latos, paintings’ author.

„Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.” – 
Fryderyk Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy Or: Hellenism and Pessimism

About art and the author

World with its opportunities and risks – about paintings in our gallery.

Dante in The Divine Comedy said: “All hope abandon, ye who enter in!” Those who watch the Author’s works, should also “all hope abandon”. Not because they are about to see people suffering in hell. Simply because what they are about to see, differs from what their eyes got used to seeing in this world; it is not mimesis. These works – as in Dante’s work – lead into depths of mystery, clean intoxicated hearts, and soften scant fears.

In the presented works, one may notice the influence of Bergson and a weaker impact of Nietzsche. The influence of the first one is revealed by Author’s attitude towards nature. Inseparable nature’s element is a human being, harmonized with its individualistic way of existence. And the nature portrayed here, in the size of the universe, is somewhat still in the phase of continuous creation. Only intuition allows the spectator to get an understanding of the existence’s dynamism showed in this manner, as well as to dig into it by interacting with the work. Every viewer should, however, remember that intuition leads to oversimplifying and generate intellectual laziness. The intuitive approach to perceiving these works does not require references to superhuman power, yet it expects the viewer to go beyond senses and rational mind. Because it is not mind that is in charge here.

The influence of Nietzsche may be noticed in the averseness towards everything that is small, poor, common, ordinary. In the Author’s works, adoration and worship go to a free and independent, yet lonely or even tragic human being. Fear and struggle are demonstrated here as those that can take one’s temporal happiness away. There is also calm, but it is fused with the pressure of waiting for something that is still hidden, uncovered and that may alter the presented scene – like a volcanic eruption. One may perceive the calm before the storm. These works beam with the memory of creation, the memory of love, the memory of beauty, and the memory of temporal experience.  

The Author’s works do not embellish the old ideas; they show however numerous moments of an intellectual, physical, and spiritual change of the world and human. Are these moments of change, depicted in the paintings, going to last forever? Are they a sneak peek of something close? It is hard to say. But they surely create new myths, desacralizing the old ones. 

Approaching contemporary culture from the perspective of a myth seems anachronistic. But the contemporary man lives right there, among the mythical messages, and submits to their subtle determination. The presented works represent the contemporary forms of transfigured myths. If an artist wants to create their own mythology, they thereby enter into the vital space capturing the truth about the world, the people, the causative factors, and the values.  

But then the most important issue becomes this: which community is the artist going to bond to? Artist’s very own mythology creates most often a certain community of closed areas. And here…? On these paintings…? What community is showed…? Or maybe it is an artistic way to express the pervasive cosmic globalization?

The world showed in these paintings enables us to see a new space of new meanings. That space goes through constant changes, both literal and symbolical. Its interpretation influences the way of existence and of showing humans on the paintings; the way of showing both man and woman. Do these spaces have diagnostic functions of which discovery and a right understanding allow us to comprehend the culture patterns created nowadays? Perhaps; after all, they depict injuries, deformations, screams, revolts, but also delight, beauty, joy, thought. Accomplishing this kind of artistic skill in times of mass culture is not necessarily an easy task. Works collected for this exhibition participate in this task, even if not consciously. 

(review written by Maria Basińska)