“I’m an optimist by nature”

Luiza Poreda, 13 May 2021

In his paintings, Michał Mroczka willingly shows fear, the nightmare of war, anxiety or apocalyptic visions of the future, strongly present in the contemporary narrative about the human world. Whether they are shipwrecks, which are cemeteries hidden at the bottom of the sea, or pictures from the solar series referring to the Japanese aesthetics, the author strives in them to show, with a strong texture and colors, a difficult but true vision of humanity. Today we invite you to the exhibition of works by Michał Mroczka entitled “Times of anxiety”, the opening of which will take place on Monday, May 24, 2021 at 6.00 p.m. at the headquarters of the Art in House Auction House (Al. Jerozolimskie 107, Warsaw).

The decomposition or contrasting colors present in Michał Mroczka’s artwork are associated with landscapes as if after the explosion of an atomic bomb. However, we will not see macabre, literal representations here, but rather a sublime form of man’s account of various forms of violence used by him in the world: be against nature or against himself as a species. Artist captures the whole in spatial visions with an extremely strong aesthetic and emotional load. These are images created from a distance by a man living in times of peace, who does not succumb to the illusion of an idyllic vision of reality. Depictions of ruined and burning metropolises, ships buried at the bottom of the seas and oceans, reveal the essence of the human species as an aggressor, and at the same time a victim of the world he created.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The artist, however, says about himself that he is an optimist by nature.

– Perhaps Thanatos, who is dormant in me (in Greek mythology, a god and personification of death), makes me look for painterly beauty in apocalyptic content, industrialized landscape, in war. Maybe the end of the world is near, or maybe we just like to be afraid? – Michał Mroczka wonders.

As Michał Mroczka continues, he loves to observe the world:

– The one that is physically close, like ripening tomatoes in the garden and the view outside the window, family and friends. But also the one on a geopolitical scale, more and more accelerating, calculated for centuries, focused on profit under the cover of beautiful phrases. Fortunately, I am separated from it by a shield in the form of a TV screen, newspaper or book. The artist is definitely an observer and, consequently, a commentator of reality. The outside world for me is undoubtedly a great inspiration – says the painter.

About the deceptively safe perspective of a Western man

Michał Mroczka has been interested in geopolitical changes for years and this has always been reflected in his paintings. He does not always show important topics literally – to read the content of his paintings, one often needs to have some common knowledge about the world.

The artist grew up in a house where there were always plenty of books, atlases and historical maps. Such historical or geographical maps show how uncertain our tomorrow is, although from today’s perspective of a man living in Western civilization it seems to us (and only seems) unwavering, stable and reasonably predictable.

 

– This perception of the world has been changed a lot by the pandemic, previously associated with some Middle Ages or at least with a Spanish woman 100 years away. In addition, we observe wars at our neighbors, as well as climate change that is happening before our eyes – just look at the school’s geographic atlas from the 1970s, for example the Aral Lake disappearing at a very fast pace and compare its size with that in the modern atlas. These processes accelerate and go in an apocalyptic direction. Raw material wars are inevitable. Some countries are already fighting for water today. It is also taking over the world leadership from the United States to China – in the economic and military dimensions. Fifty years ago, such a scenario was laughed at. Today it becomes a reality – says Michał Mroczka.

 

 

How were the paintings that we will see at the exhibition at Art in House created?

At the “Times of Anxiety” exhibition at the headquarters of the Art in House Auction House in Warsaw, we will see paintings by Michał Mroczka from his two series: a serie of wrecks and a solar one.

– I was inspired to create a series of wrecks by sonographic images of ships resting at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, which I encountered thanks to my father-in-law. I considered it to be a very painterly subject for which I found my own textural form and the color combinations I had invented, which were prompted by my intuition. I also wanted, apart from purely formal and painterly qualities, that these pictures should become a form of historical documentation. The serie of wrecks would probably not have been created without my previous painting research related to the architecture of the Warsaw Uprising and the modernist Gdynia, paintings showing container terminals … Later, phantasmagorical visions of various wrecks were created, which were the product of my painting vision – says the painter.

 

Solar paintings, in turn, is a cycle that began in the flag of Japan. For Michał, it is beauty in simplicity, inspired by nature. Subsequent paintings in this series began to evolve further and further from the legible inspiration of the flag “towards inspiration with a broadly understood landscape that is more and more mysterious, with a predominance of wild nature”:

– In my solar paintings, it is often irrelevant to me whether the round form dominating the canvas is the sun or another astral object, for me it is primarily a certain graphic dominant. It is a circle as the quintessence of an ideal with a phantasmagoric industrial landscape, wild nature and water at its feet. In this series, I try to choose the colors in a highly contrasting manner so that the image is visually attractive. Some of these pictures are wild and some are calm – adds Michał Mroczka.

 

 

Artistic beginnings of Michał Mroczka

Michał Mroczka currently lives in Warsaw and graduated from the Faculty of Arts in Lublin. For many years, the artist was active in Lublin, since 2007 he has also been a co-founder of the artistic group Independent Academy of Frenetics (NAF), whose main originator is Dawid Denwer Kędzierski

– I come from Podkarpacie, I attended an art school with Dawid in Rzeszów. NAF is an artistic group that has over a dozen performances, open-air events and group exhibitions (most recently in 2019 at BWA in Nowy Targ). It brings together over a dozen people from Poland and abroad. I was the originator of the name and the author of the artistic manifesto of the group – Michał Mroczka tells us.

On the other hand, in Lublin, in addition to painting studies, Michał worked for two years for Radio Lublin, and after graduation, together with his friends, he founded an independent gallery called Kamienica Cudów.

– We organized several shows which were very popular in Lublin, and even the police came to the vernissages… We also established an artistic association Otwarta Pracownia in Lublin – adds the painter.

 

More exhibitions soon

Michał Mroczka is currently preparing a series of exhibitions as part of the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Pracownia Otwarta association in Lublin.

– It will be a rotating individual exhibition on the site called Windows 21. The next ones are: the Geopolitics exhibition prepared with two other artists and a collective exhibition of the members of the association. In addition, I will take part in the second edition of the plein-air commemorating Bogusław Kędzierski, a sculptor from Dynów – Michał Mroczka sums up his plans for the near future.

Michał Mroczka “Times of anxiety”
Opening: May 24 (Monday) 2021 at 18:00
at the headquarters of the Art in House Auction House, Al. Jerozolimskie 107, Warsaw.
The exhibition will last until June 6.
FREE ENTRANCE