Artist

Mikołaj Małek

ABOUT EXHIBITION

Mikołaj Malek’s painting presents this type of creativity, which does not exacerbate the aggressiveness of the means of expression used, does not provoke an immediate reaction. His subtle, balanced, saturated with melancholy images encourage contemplation and tranquility.

In his works, the painter uses seemingly contradictory tendencies: figurations and abstractions, but as he admits himself, there is no such division visible for him.

Despite references to reality, the artist deconstructs her picture, eliminates it, fragmentizes it, resigns from a literal representation of a specific element. The track for such conduct may be quoted by the young author of a fragment of the book by Italo Calvino “If a winter night traveler”:

“I go with the Grand Prospectus of our city and erase those elements that I decided not to take into consideration. I pass by the building of some ministry with overloaded façade, I see caryatids, columns, plinths, cornices, metopes and I feel the need to bring this facade to a smooth, vertical surface, to a glass, matt plate, to a barrier that will limit the space, not throwing itself in eyes. But this edifice, even so simplified, still overwhelms me, deprives me of breath. I decide to delete it completely. In his place a milky sky grows out of the bare earth. In the same way, I erase five other ministries, three banks and two skyscrapers of big commercial companies. The world is so complicated that in order to be discerned, you have to thin out, still thin out. ”

In contrast, abstract paintings are built. They are distinguished by the accumulation of elements, layers, complexity of lines and divisions. This phrase turns to the non-representative ways of imagining the inventor willingness to experiment, try new techniques, but above all it is a way to relax for a moment from the flood of visual stimuli, “catch your breath”.

The presence of a human figure is a permanent element of the works. The author willingly uses this motif in figural representations, sometimes in a schematic form he appears in abstract painting. Even if the picture is devoid of this element, as Małek himself admits: “always these figures are in my head somewhere.”

The common denominator for this painting is his mood steeped in melancholy, expressing concentration, but also anxiety, emptiness; and being a projection of the artist’s soul. The title innuendo (Latin), meaning a hazy allusion to something, insinuation, a hidden excuse, a masked personal trip, may be a specific and explicit work of a young painter who, although using various formal means, is primarily focused on giving a specific atmosphere, mood and spirit. To this end, he avoids literalness and unambiguity by building a narrative full of understatements. He wants to be as restrained, subtle, detained, but not conservative, to touch matters that are most important to him, because only such painting interests him. Although the artist spins an intimate story, he simultaneously tries to: “give as much interpretation as possible, as many spaces and possibilities as possible”.

His painting is intimate, private, but not screaming: me! tour.

Mikołaj Małek, born on in 1983 in Żyrardów, he lives and works in Kraków. Student of the 4th year of the Faculty of Painting in the studio of prof. Leszek Misiak.

exhibitions:

2008 – Exhibition from the series “Master and students”, collective exhibition of the studio of prof. Leszek Misiak, Tarnowskie Góry
2008 – Innuendo, ART AGENDA NOVA, Kraków