Matecki gives new life to reproductions from exhibition catalogs and art magazines, transforming them into puzzling, witty miniature oil paintings, with a format not exceeding a frame of a 20×20 cm square.
A series of acrylic paintings is an effect of a well-structured routine—an automated process of covering the canvas with paint using a palette knife. Dimensions of the canvas, the colors used and juxtaposed and finally also the size of the motif, all differ. Matecki is referencing classic forms of abstract painting but at the same time still looking for a radical and impersonal quality of the contemporary painterly image.
Sorry, this entry is only available in Polish.
The starting point for the collaborative work of two painters is Matecki’s uninhibited travesty of Eugene Delacroix’s Massacre at Chios.
This work might well serve as a synoptic manual for Art History; the narrative begins at the center of the canvas, with an image of a head inspired by the busts of Antiquity, to latter-day images cut out of art journals.
(Polski) Szkice olejne powstają na wyrwanych z kolorowych magazynów stronach z fotografiami. Malarstwo użyte do spoufalenia się z masową kulturą wizualną wydobywa z niej szlachetną nieoczywistość, a samo nabiera pełnej humoru lekkości.
Matecki’s Arise is a hellish vision of art, where the greats of French Romanticism are depicted alongside Brazil’s pioneers of Death and Trash Metal.
Artist Zbigniew Rogalski was charged with the task of developing the work further and in response he placed a rescaled study of a hip bone in the center of the canvas.
(Polski) 30-kilogramowy, brązowy odlew jednego z obrazów Mateckiego w jak najbardziej dosłowny sposób ujawnia ciężar gestu malarskiego i przenosi go w całkowicie odmienną znaczeniowo materię.
(Polski) Naścienna kompozycja nawiązująca do tradycji modernistycznych reliefów i dekoracyjnej plastyki architektonicznej.
(Polski) Do namalowania obrazu Matecki zaprosił trzech innych, znajomych malarzy.
Painting from a series in which a reproduction of and old painting or landscape photograph, placed in the lower part of the painting, is contrasted with the artist’s interpretation of the motif.
The work reveals the artist’s interest, developed in future works, in painterly matter itself and the logic of its construction.
