THE FILTHY ROSE GARDEN
– on painting and objects by Pawel Matyszewski

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue. (…)*

– What perfume do you wear?

– Envy. It’s quite old-fashioned smell of Gucci. It has a fern scent
– I smell seductive, don’t I?…

– No. I smell such a chill weed. I am worried about such smell on you.

Sometimes it happens, that we wake up in the middle of the night with high blood pressure. There is a sparkling winter night around us, and this feeling of worry appears: we are not sure whether we feel good or bad? Whether we are pleased? Or perhaps quite the opposite: we feel discomfort of century? There appears one of a kind – ambivalence. All-ambivalence. The land of everything that falls between: love – hate; plus – minus; zero – one; to be – not to be… That’s the secret garden of Pawel Matyszewski.

The musty, amazing odour of patchouli simply becomes fascinating. Inspiring. Ivy. Fern. Lividness and chill. Bleeding. Existence. Conflict.

These works are very weird. Covered with a specific web of allusions. The perception conflict. Above all, Pawel is a great artist. He paints superbly.
He is able to make rips on canvas in a controlled way; whereas on wounded skin, Complications appear.

He has recently come out from his Secret Garden – as he still tells his stories, placing his creations of imagination in strange spaces. Even under the skin… Plants. Skin. Hair. Pain and unity. Ambiguity and transformation. Moral vacuum. The freedom of choice. Every kind of freedom.

There are also objects created. A cycle of small tapestries, and Siamese benches, joined for ever.

The small tapestries bring back memories of our grandmothers’ traditional houses. The perfection of realization covers up its content.

To all those, oddly deformed, subtly and aptly transformed objects, Pawel wishes to give a special meaning: he wants them to tell, illustrate some complicated stories: to enter into a struggle. He is able to permanently hide some information, to cover a mystery with tons of plants; ornaments – the painting is beautiful, simply nice. Only after a while – by observing more attentively – we will notice something. Some conflict. Some ambiguity. It aims at something …. he arouses a plethora of associations – and our own intuition is able to help us to decode them. Our sensibility enables to break the code.

The works of this artist are not always nice. They are not always easy. But they need to be learnt. We cannot restrict ourselves. We canot loose the sensitivity, the strength of perception / feeling for something at first sight.

All around, there is a smell of fear but also an excitement.

Not realizing, we migrate to a mystic abbey. Strange creatures. Belching puffballs. Life-giving bacteries. The end and the beginning.

The skin is pierced, wounded, with ostentatiously convex imperfections.

Shame. Glory. Finally: eternity

Marta Mariańska

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* S. Plath, The Moon and the Yew Tree, The Collected Poems, 1961

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The exhibition was realized thanks to the scholarship of the President of Bialystok

Paweł Matyszewski

Born in 1984 in Bialystok. Lives and works in Knyszyn and Poznan.

education:

Graduate from the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan. In 2009 he received a diploma in painting at the atelier of Professor Piotr C. Kowalski.

selected solo exhibitions:

2009

„Leucospermum”, Starter Gallery, Poznan

„Uro dziwy”, Galeria na Polskiej, Poznan

2008

„Lysichiton”, Enter Gallery, Poznan

selected group exhibitions:

2010

„Public space – Contexts”, Profil Gallery, Center of Culture Zamek, Poznan

„50 Paintings”, BWA, Bielsko-Biala

„Promotions 2010″, BWA, Legnica

„Very Good Paintings”, BWA, Bielsko-Biała

„Artesantander”, Targi sztuki, Santander, Spain

„Protoplasm”, Arsenal Gallery/ old power station, Bialystok

„Ars Homo Erotica”, National Museum, Warsaw

„Art Sphere”, Sfera Gallery, BWA Bielsko-Biała

2009

„Bielska Autumn”, Bielsko-Biala

„End 3 Errata”, End Gallery, Poznan

„Figurama”, Prague, Brno, Brussels

2008

„Summer Love”, Enter Gallery, Poznan