The story Zbigniew Rogal­ski tells in his newest show begins with a col­lec­tion of seashells. Rogal­ski has accustomed us to pain­tings in which various spaces interpenetrate—artistic, museum space and intimate, private space. Homesick is also a kind of col­lec­tion, but merely a pretext to deeper meditation. Rogal­ski is con­cer­ned with the ambiguous relation between the body and architec­ture, between the living and what is built to protect it, between the organic and the rational. The aban­doned shells in his pain­tings are both images of places of poten­tial shel­ter, a living space, and a metaphor for leaving home, depar­ture or forced escape. In Rogalski’s pain­terly inter­pretation, this ambiguous symbol has the softness of a shroud. His pain­ting movin­gly com­bines formal inven­tion and finesse with a lyrical mes­sage. In itself it is an intuitive jour­ney spiral­ling into the depths, where the image finally ends but curiosity remains alive.

The canvases are accom­panied by photographs featuring the rec­lining figure of the artist’s teenage son. Por­trait of a Boy, Rogal­ski ten­tatively titled these images, but they could just as well allude to the notion of a snail craw­ling into an indepen­dent future. The pain­ter draws elemen­tary geo­metrical figures on them, seeking a rational, Vitruvian order. But instead of a simple rule, the motif of the spiral tel­lin­gly returns.

A special addition to the exhibition is the sound­track com­posed and recor­ded at the artist’s invitation by Monika Brodka.