Tomek Baran Tomek Baran

OPENING
Thursday, January 31,2013, 6.30pm

WELCOME
Peter Krammer, Mitglied des Vorstandes, STRABAG SE

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Johannes Knoll, Knoll Galerie, Wien / Budapest
Kamil Julian, Kunstkritiker und Kurator, Warschau

The non-recurring gesture, the unique brushstroke that leaves a trace in the form of a line on the canvas, they are duplicated at the same time. The artist covers the white surface with a dense network, creating a tangle of structures. His geometric figures appear crooked and one-sided. Individual lines break out of the bounding space and disrupt the rectangular shape of the picture. Baran hypnotizes us with his tangle of subdivisions, which sometimes appear to be regular, then slightly inclined backwards, are never finished and transport us into another world. Katarzyna Was, curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow

If you place a flower inside a neon lamp and turn electricity on, the light coming from the lamp would probably resemble one of Tomek Baran's color-stripe paintings. His art has something of a scientific laboratory where beams of lights refract and bodies in test tubes deform. This, however, exists only in the eye of the beholder. His works remain abstract: they employ no symbols; they refer to no outer world. Yet like a broken mirror they reflect. The line, recurrent in most of his works, cuts the plain into two, three or four areas, breaking the image. A painting you can't break. You may fold it, pull or push it, scratch or cut it - and some of these have been performed by Tomek Baran - yet it remains. Unlike broken glass, a broken painting can't cut your hand or eye-ball. Devoid of noise or anger, his art is neither emotional nor rational; it is both and none at the same time. A painting you can't break because painting is already broken. Yet it remains attractive.
 Kamil Julian, curator, critic, Warsaw

>Tomek Baran

Photos: STRABAG ART