A HUMANISTIC LANDSCAPE

Tomasz Chojnacki creates a constantly complemented message whose foundation is the human identity, the man both in the individual (personal) dimension as well as in the cultural, internal and external context.

The main figure of this creation is by no means defined by the realistic representation, being as easy for perception as superficial. Chojnacki’s man appears in his works most often only suggested, simplified or processed and - as in conceptual games with the viewer - he often refers us to something beyond himself, to the essence of the message. Even though his image is created by the photographic medium, it is not done in order to confirm the validity of beliefs about the reproductive potential and values of art.

The identity of the figures is usually undefined, their presence is manifested by a sharp line, a distinct contour or flat colour plane, looking as if it was ‘cut out’ with a stencil. In the world presented in Tomasz Chojnacki’s works there is hardly any information defining the condition or status of the figures, the time and space of their existence. Anatomical details are rarely exposed; photographs that feature most of them tend to be cropped, blurred; pictures overlap one another, obscuring the image.

The characteristic profiles, occupying different positions on the plane - multiplied, moved, rotated - allow for the presentation of various relations of man with himself and with other people. Mirror (kind of the same, yet different) contrasting images, brought to life through a variety of means of expression, when overlapping each other, entering its symmetrical reflections into someone’s personal space, indicate many aspects of human nature and its inability to capture its coherent image.

Now we understand why the figures do not exist in the area of a topographically defined territory - they represent feelings, the emotional sphere. They also enter the area of culture, the domain of art.

The figure is created by means of subtle yet vivid lines, or by a form that seems to be ‘cut out’ of a work of another artist; it also appears as a monumental graphic sign, sometimes a quotation from a photograph.

The artist presents different ways of articulation of human existence, at varied levels of specificity. The one that is most general treats the human image as an anonymous individual that functions only as one of the similar copies and manifests itself as a form typical of popular culture, the form reduced to the role of an ornament and a gadget.

A sign, a graphic motive, is sometimes subject to a complex grammar due to duplication or displacement. In the latest works the man is brought to a silhouette, a module created from colourful planes, a substitute of a human figure, almost a symbol. The artist is interested in the potential contexts within which the man appears, with the space understood not only topographically but socially and culturally as well.

In other works, especially in the early graphics, the figures accentuate their presence by their suggestive images, entangled in the web of emotional relationships.

A specific form of identity presentation is associated with signs of existence, of merely calligraphic nature, originating from a desire to mark ‘the presence in the reality’. They are conceived through spontaneous, expressive and sometimes allusive gestures (as in Lyrical Abstraction). A variety of imagery in Tomasz Chojnacki’s oeuvre might be explained not only by the forty years of evolution of his work, the use of different artistic disciplines and techniques, the multitude of artistic fascinations, but also by the need to respond to the world and the position which the man takes there. He achieves it, using the means of expression characteristic of this changing world, demonstrating openness and sensitivity, the specific ‘expansion of perception’.

When the capability of one language, a particular method of communication with the viewer is exhausted, the artist tries to find a new way to express emotions. Although he abandons the previous means of expression, looking for new ones, we can clearly see the echoes of the previous reflections, understood not only as manifestations of similar problems which he considers again, but also as a physical presence of the imagery forms and even fragments of concrete, earlier works in the newest artwork. It is a kind of emotional-time continuum, the landscape of memory, individual and collective one, expanded by adding and combining many works into one composition, as well as multiplication of motives within a single work, quotation of earlier messages. Taking into account their manner of existence (images out of focus, blurred, indistinct), some imagery elements further emphasize the feeling of relativity, characteristic of the postmodernist reflection, and the desire to undermine the universal, one and only evaluations and judgments, focused around an organizing centre.

Also the practice of combining works into polyptychs may be an expression of the artist’s belief that a single work does not offer a complete knowledge concerning a given phenomenon. We can make an attempt to consolidate our knowledge. The multiplicity of viewpoints guarantees the multitude of information that is accumulated in the hope of getting a more complete message. Both life and art are dynamic phenomena.

To express himself as clearly as possible in life and art and to talk about them, the artist differentiates and connects artistic techniques in the way he combines different perspectives and points of view. At the same time Tomasz Chojnacki modifies the traditional graphic and painting craftsmanship, expands and enriches it, going beyond the accepted boundaries in these fields of art.

This art has an undeniable autothematic dimension. It is a kind of self-statement and meta-art. The artist uses artistic means of expression to talk about art itself. First of all, about its present status. Art lost its monumental dimension a long time ago, for example due to the Dadaist and Neo-Dadaist manifestations (Fluxus).

However, we are still accustomed to certain artistic forms and the ways of their perception. It happens that we feel moved by a more fictitious image of a man in literature and art than by the real problems of real people. We frame pictures, celebrate them. Does art deserve it and is it a vehicle of the truth? Chojnacki’s works are sometimes of quite hard-hitting nature. The artist exposes the flip side of the images, he includes frames with stretched and painted canvas as components of assemblages, as The artist constantly looks for simple ways to express the complex truth about life, based on his own experience.

Despite the simple means of expression, the artist manages to create aesthetically rich texture of his works. Some representations appeal to us by their nearly poster-like manner. Other compositions, using a multiplied, simplified sign of a human being, act like a mosaic, a decorative pattern. An important source of artistic value of this artwork is the rhythm, emphasizing the dynamic aspect of existence.

In his a spectacular synthesis of means of expression Tomasz Chojnacki stresses and combines the advantages of various disciplines and techniques he deals with: drawing, painting, classic graphic arts and digital prints. In many works the areas designated by plane experiments stand side by side with graphic motives, colourful images contrast with the black-and-white photographs, in landscapes the elements evoking tranquillity are contrasted with some expressive areas. The artist juxtaposes flat and spatial forms - in assemblages the two-dimensional plane of the image enters the third dimension.

The aesthetic aspect of Tomasz Chojnacki’s artwork, though obviously rich and evolving, has never been the ultimate value of his expression. In the artist’s oeuvre we can observe the echoes of various traditions. An inquisitive viewer would see there the influence of Art Informel (Tachism, Lyrical Abstraction, calligraphic trend), as well as the conceptual way of thinking and Pop Art or the Neo-figurative Art.

However, they are primarily a testimony to an imperative of constant responding to changes in the world around us, to what constitutes the human condition. They are an expression of the search for an appropriate method to retain the ‘real image of things’, which would not only reveal the real vision of the artist, but would also express the need to seek the truth, refer to the essential meanings, current and universal ideas. To tell the story of the man, his identity, relationships with others, to show how we become dependent on social conventions, the way we are immersed and melted into culture, sometimes reaching the boundaries of banality.

And - being the voice of the artist – to respond to the fundamental question: What is the position of art in it?

Dariusz Leśnikowski

Translated by Elżbieta Rodzeń-Leśnikowska