Page 110 - Masters

master
TOMASz M. kUkAWSkI
Lives and works in Bialystok, Poland
SEARCH THE ARTIST ONLINE
www.icondata.triennial.cracow.pl/polishprint/index
The pale of sheet of paper a moment before being teased, the graphic matrix
being always the imagination of white or black – the first stroke contaminated by
indefiniteness, until the moment of drowning in the flood of others it will transform
white into light. Overcoming the extremity of white and black, searching for light
in shadows, the nuances and the
beauty of values and forms of
objects entering and exiting us.
There is smile of a child in it, when
it runs down the stairs, the violet
of shadow on a cheek of wife, the
memory of certain dawn, the sky
being the feeling of blue, the wing
of an angel or a bird in a blink of
the eye – all there and back in the
dim corridors of the brain, only to
be ... against the blind white and
the mute and dumb back.
Tomasz M. kukawski
In case of Tomasz kukawski,
focusing on the workshop does not
mean limiting the work to merely
one technique. He successfully
prac tices zincography and
reaches various effects of color,
texture and condensation, from
dry and shallow to deep and
saturated ones. But, having
a considerable experience in
linocut prints, he feels equally at
ease, individually developing new
ways of expression, while using
the technique which was once
made famous by the works of Jozef gielniak. Recently however, he seems keen
to create complex, multilayered works, based on linoleum and metal, which are
difficult and require precision, as well as great patience in process of printing. He
also willingly introduces color. Here, the world of meanings is created out of symbols
and metaphors which – despite archetypal circulating in our culture – are shaped
individually. They aren’t oppressive, and sometimes even hard to follow.
Eventually – and I am not sure to what extent of this effect was reached intentionally
– a somewhat magical picture emerges, in which the gist and the meanings are
rather hinted at, than unambiguously explained. Those riddles, entanglements,
unexpected elucidations and yet another mysterious evasions, resemble the state
of being lost in the labyrinth of thoughts – like the attempts to read the unreadable
nature of existence. The mentioned signs and symbols – even if they originate
from the realm of nature – will always belong to those rudimentary ones, which
are peculiar to the Mediterranean tradition. (Excerpt)
Maciej gutowski
106
masters of today