Tomasz Kręcicki, absurd and move

Berlin,

Born in little girl (Poland) in 1990 and Rracavia resident, Tomasz Kręcicki formed in the Academy of Fine Arts of that city and in that of Nuremberg and has managed to introduce his work in a good number of European collections and Chinese without virtually a unique theme: irrationality. In their paintings, linked thematically by the absurd, but also by the presence of simplified forms and sometimes repetitive, we can find huge fingers participating in diverse and little defined activities, hands and eyes that refer to the tools of every artist and daily objects submerged in atmospheres of David Lynch’s films or the terror of serial B.

He is interested in exploring the possible incorporation of the abstract in figuration, but also of jokes, ingenuity … and anxiety: long cables to repel birds, bugs or even a loose button can suggest apprehension, latent physical threats; In any case, an implicit narrative content intended for the tempted spectator to decrypt it. It is not about random motives, no matter how much Kafkianos may seem: they house concerns related to the drifts of contemporary politics- which are very close to generation- and their repercussions on the daily life of individuals.

The Berlin headquarters of Esther Schipper dedicates its first individual to Kręcicki (the second in this firm after the one in Seoul last year): it is called “Move On”, it consists of always unpublished paintings and is based on approaches of all cinematographic. Each of the works works on the tour as the framework of a storyboard, proposing to the public to build for him his own narrative based on his personal impressions: expanded details of apparently ordinary objects constitute brief glimpses, in the first planes, of plots that sprout from the past and that, above all, will continue; Their fabrics seem to want to anticipate events that we are not able to specify: this author understands as suspense exercises, even as evocations of sounds, aromas or pains.

After reviewing the sample as a whole, we will intuit that the actions represented in these compositions offer a vivid impression of what it means to move. Kręcicki, who anticipated his own move to another study when he planned this project, seems to have devised the scenarios of that relocation and vaguely recreated concrete moments of the process. Some works present us objects – huge occasions, maybe much appreciated for their slight wear – and could refer to a selection: what will take, what will leave behind?

Tomasz Kręcicki Move Out (Furniture), 2024

Others refer, by contrast, to actions: to the transport of furniture and heavy appliances, carried by large hands through simplified geometric shapes that we will immediately recognize as steps. One more group refers to the general order that accompanies a move: invent, throw. Each of its images, in short, reveals fragments, details that we recognize and that lead us to a posterior episode: will what wears be dropped, will your fingers hook in some obstacle?

Paints of pots in pots constitute another group of reasons in the exhibition, and also point to a past and a present, in addition to human presence: someone took care of them; They can be gifts from friends or family. Captured in various flower or deterioration states, they talk about care, abandonment, resignation, resistance. Kręcicki uses this topic to demonstrate its extensive knowledge and admiration for the innumerable painters who have represented plants in domestic environments, both in the historical genre of the Vanitas as, more specifically, in the creations of the twentieth century raised as metaphors or symbols. However, in a turn that tells us about its vocation to incorporate subtle touches of humor, it also makes strategic use of cinematographic tropes, such as the melodramatic burning sky that silhouets a dry plant.

Where is the reflection on current social shakes? For Kręcicki, whom the Ukrainian war is not far away, his move reminded him of the experience of those who have to flee from their homes, not in organized transfers, but in traumatic and not chosen abandonments of the home, work or the country.