Between
Piotr Trusik is one of my favourite painters of the young generation. Despite his age, he has been noticed around the world. […] He does not explain his works or reveal the actual people and events that could have inspired them. He wants them to be annexed by our experiences.
– Mariusz Szczygieł
Piotr Trusik’s paintings are based on careful observation of human nature and accompanied by a search for the painting form that best reflects its mental states and emotions. Trusik is a young, but already recognized artist. He has won a large following with works that maturely combine professional skill (which is, however, constantly in the process of exploration and experimentation) with subject matter that speaks convincingly and insightfully about the human being. For Trusik, these two spheres of activity – the message and the material in which it is expressed – are equivalent.
Trusik is known for paintings in which a realistic image, most often the face of a beautiful woman, is partially obscured by abstract painting forms, preventing the viewer from fully viewing and identifying the figurative image. This partial obscurity speaks of our inability to know another person completely. However, Trusik’s focus on the face of the depicted figure, rendered in a subtle but realistic way, produces a sense of the physical integrity of the human figure, of an identity that is distinct and individual, but also part of the community of people as constructed units, maturing through experiences and emotions.
Trusik is one of those artists who patiently give themselves time to thoroughly search for the subject matter that motivates him to create a work or a series of paintings. Vivisections, along with attempts to understand the essence of human nature and the surrounding world that influences it, find expression in the creative process, which is focused on the sphere of spirit as well as matter. Trusik makes art because he wants to share his experiences, but they are not dominant. The imperative is not to make them public; rather, the artist’s experiences are an impulse, a pretext to talk about the universal characteristics of man as shaped by the world of inner experiences and emotions. At the same time and with the same intensity, he is involved in discovering the laws of the world of painting matter and its potentials. Trusik is searching for a balance between message and technique.
Between is another instalment of Trusik’s creative explorations. It coincides with a period in his life when, overwhelmed by momentous events and powerful emotions, good and bad, he discovers the respite and peace provided by contact with nature. Between is about sharing the personal experience of being part of nature, which can restore our peace of mind, soothe and remind us of the common sense of life resulting from being part of it.
At the same time, the exhibition is the result of a focused and persistent search for the most adequate painting form, perfect for the chosen subject. Trusik once again experiments, searching, exploring the spectrum of possibilities offered by the painterly substance. The result of this individual approach is paint penetrating from inside the support, manifesting itself from behind the picture surface, and forming what is visible to the viewer on the canvas plane. As in his earlier paintings, contact with an expressive, fleshy painting texture from outside the visible exterior makes us sense the existence of a separate, unknown sphere of reality.
The exhibition’s narrative is determined by anonymous human figures, which are part of and complement the impression of the landscape in which we find ourselves. They tell us about the unity of man with nature and the natural world, about their mutual influence, about the intimacy that humans need, which can bring us relief, joy, and a sense of meaning in times of life’s turmoil.
Curator
Krystyna Różańska-Gorgolewska
