The Bird Column

The works by Piotr Lutyński and the meticulously arranged openings of his exhibitions are specific performances with music, food, and drink and are a manifestation of the artist’s attitude to life and of his personal experiences. In his works, however, we will not find literal references to the private sphere. The intimate and emotional experience of the world is presented here in a subtle and poetic manner. In his interviews, the artist often goes back to his university years when he spent his summer vacation working in the field and tending to animals on a farm; he claims that the presence of both animals and images in his installations comes from his experience of nature.

The geometrical abstractions, particularly those with overlapping concentric black and yellow squares, or the red rectangle containing a yellow and black square and a blue rectangle, are termed by the artist “found images”, which are with him every day, in his memory and in the world around him. For Lutyński painting is inseparable from the sound present in his works (both instrumental music as well as the chirping of birds), and he treats both images and animals as musical themes. He emphasizes that he too “lives in a painting”, thus merging life with art.

The Bird Column can be interpreted as an expression of the total experience of reality. At the same time, it is a manifestation of the coexistence of painting, music and the art of living. Lutyński bases his works on synesthesia, which makes it possible for colours and smells to be perceived through the experience of sound. Romantics believed that the synthesis of arts means a homogenous language which has the power of unraveling the mystery of existence. In the works of Lutyński, this synthesis creates a common plane on which communication is possible without words. It is a common plane of “being”. Also, the artist’s conviction about the unity of art/human being and nature has a Romantic origin. His art is about the harmonious coexistence of these spheres; it is an expression of the joy of “living in art”, close to the Franciscan concept of humbleness and the idea of the brotherhood of creatures.

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