Zbigniew Rogalski Death of a partisan

"Death of a partisan" is the most recent project by Zbigniew Rogalski - an artist who became known as a trained specialist in interweaving the reality with the painterly fiction. While in his earlier works he was exposing the obsessions associated with the life of a painter, tracking fleeting images and reflections of thought (series of paintings with fogged over mirrors and windows) or momentary states of zero-g, now he takes us to the very edge of consciousness. Six paintings and a series of drawings depict a moment when the contours of reality are beginning to blur - the moment the partisan dies. Through a peculiar point of view employed by the painting it is us who, while standing before the painting, become the partisan.

Rogalski is successful in restoring an element of the visionary to the painting, and he does it in an extremely suggestive manner. For a short moment the surface of the canvas becomes a screen onto which obsessions, fears and revelations of our consciousness are projected. The way of framing and the use of painterly tricks come close to the esthetics of motion picture. Rogalskiís workshop however, enables him to film images inaccessible to the camera. Above all this painting speaks of imagination that doesnít let one thoughtlessly consume the visual world, instead it endlessly leads towards intangible and ultimate matters. It is sometimes beautiful, sometimes frightening, and once in a while - as in the "Death of a partisan" those emotions blend together into one.

Zbigniew Rogalski (born 1974, Dπbrowa Bia≥ostocka), graduated from the Fine Arts Academy in PoznaÒ in 1999, lives and works in Warsaw. Rogalski is amongst the most interesting artists of the generation that made its debut in 2000. In 2000, his first solo exhibition took place at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw. In 2001 he won the Geppert painting contest held at the BWA Awangarda gallery in Wroc≥aw. Since then he had been working chiefly in video and photographic works and has established with Hubert Czerepok, a renowned artistic duet known as 'Magisters' (Masters). After completing a residency in Norway in the autumn of 2002, he returned to painting. "Death of a partisan" is his second individual exhibition, after the "self-portrait under the canvas", to be held in Raster. At the end of April his first solo show in a foreign public art institution will open at Göttingen Kunstverein. An extensive catalogue will accompany the show.

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Zbigniew Rogalski "Death of a partisan"