Łukasz Huculak - Hypotheses and hypostases - painting exhibition
Curator of the exhibition: Bogusław Deptuła
Coordinator : Aneta Garanty … if you gaze at the walls covered with various stains or at the stones variously mixed up and want to imagine a scene, you can see there the similarities of various landscapes decorated with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, great plains, valleys and variously shaped hills… (Leonardo da Vinci Treatise on Painting)
Łukasz Huculak sees the world through the lens of art. No figure or object is depicted in its real appearance. The artist presents an intriguing image characterized by its tranquility, leaving reality “underneath.”
Cable, Stick, Ceiling, Stains, Floor, Trash, Dirt – these are the titles of some of the 60 paintings that depict gallery-museum interiors, worlds, figures inspired by the works of others, and objects that are unrealized. All are typically empty, frail, as if what is most important has evaporated, vanished, as if we were only looking at an empty chocolate box…
Łukasz Huculak does not paint mountain landscapes, does not depict rivers, rocks, or trees. He only paints fungal stains, damp streaks, peeling walls, and lichens on plaster. And that’s it. He renounces detailed representation, leaving viewers with ample space for imagination and freedom of interpretation. By suggesting vague shapes, the artist stimulates and invigorates the mind, allowing recipients to read the painting in their own, individual way.
In Huculak’s painting, the gaze is drawn to emptiness. Emptiness, being the only visual equivalent of silence, can be observed in the depopulated and lifeless images from which colors have ultimately evaporated, leaving only their gray shadows. Speaking of the silence of the painting may seem paradoxical, since paintings are silent by nature. Painting is, after all, silent poetry. Therefore, for a painting to be poetry – it should remain silent. The artist knows this. Among the empty spaces in his paintings, silence prevails.
Łukasz Huculak was born in 1977 in Rzeszów. From 1997 to 2002, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław in the painting studio of Prof. Stanisław Kortyka. Since 2002, he has been associated with the Faculty of Painting and Sculpture of this university. In 2009, he obtained his doctorate. He lives in Oborniki Śląskie. He publishes texts about art in various magazines such as “Format,” “Dwutygodnik,” and “Art&Business.”
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog edited by Łukasz Huculak and Bogusław Deptuła.
The exhibition will be open to visitors from July 15 to August 3, 2012.
Galeria Warsztat, ul. Hutnicza 17 (next to the permanent exhibition COP for the future)
Opening hours: Tuesday 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Sunday 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Closed on Monday and Saturday
For more information: Aneta Garanty, tel. 15 844 85 56, ext. 11
