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At the beginning, finding a clue to the art by Wojtek Gilewicz did not seem to be difficult. However, the exhibition of photographs by the young artist has been like setting a cat among the pigeons with regard to simple interpretations.
The problem of an identity of the picture has always been a starting point for the art by Gilewicz. The graduation work by Wojtek was a summary of his earlier search for common points in painting and photography. The tangency has become literal when he photographed a fragment of the lawn and painted the remaining part. For Gilewicz, none of the two techniques is subservient in relation to the other. They supplement each other, since as the author himself says: I am interested in everything that pertains to the picture creating process – work stages, palette, paint splashed all over the canvas. A photographic film turned to be the best witness to this process. The artist has started his game with the reality into which he enters his works. Referring to impressionists, the artist has got preoccupied with nature. He has gone, however, where Monet could not go. He has added a pinch of post conceptual irony to an ordinary landscape. In a painter like manner, he has added to the image of nature. He placed a white canvas on a green meadow or in a city park. He took a photograph – a view with a white hole. Then, he painted the covered fragment of the scenery. In the meantime, the weather and light changed. It has not been easy, but he has succeeded. A photograph again. The hole has been filled in. The reality has been put together.
This game has been continued in the work “Town – Housing Estate – Atelier – Flat”.
Two painting/ photographic panoramas of the Warsaw concrete housing estate. The artist’s apartment has been an observation point. The painting perspective has been enriched with 500 photographs. This work has been an attempt to put together puzzles composed of various moments, glances and moods. It has been a sort of intermission proceeding the series of the pictures made in the USA that totally blended into the so called urban tissue. Gilewicz has proved to be an extremely skillful illusionist. Going on with his challenging the reality, he started to paint shabby doors, sprayed walls, long forgotten gates – the town outcasts, rejected witnesses to everyday life. These witnesses have been distinguished, even though nobody has noticed – and this has been his goal. Gilewicz placed his works where their prototypes used to be located. Painting fakes of town misery perfectly melted into the background. Gilewicz, by means of his pictures – like Althamer through his performances – intends to co-create the reality.
Nevertheless, the interpretation line of the works by “a painter” has been broken – Wojtek has presented his photographs. The artist has been making double portraits, applying a semi-filter, since 2002. He has made more than 500 of them. They offer a coherent unity - representing the author and his “twin brother” - a silhouette that has filled in the blank, an alter ego and an eternal witness. Gilewicz has made the dream of observing himself come true. As the narcissus delighted in his own reflection , the artist is missing the very one whose reflection he is seeing, as though it were on the water glassy surface. As the narcissus, he will never approach the object of his desire. These are the words from “They” exhibition catalogue, written by Ewa Witkowska, the exhibition curator.
At the first glance, the photographs by Gilewicz appear trivial. They describe everyday life, adding some unreal elements. The latter, however, due to the artist’s skills, are free of any surrealistic aftertaste. It is quite likely that an uninitiated viewer might see the works by Wojtek as a photographic diary of twin brothers. They emanate everyday monotony which has a certain impact on the perception. Possibly, if one or two photographs had been considerably blown up, then – juxtaposed against the smaller, even carelessly scattered “postcards” – they would have added more dramatic effects to the show by Gilewicz. Possibly, this move would have rendered even more dualistic quality of these works. The author himself says: Applying very simple means, I have created an impossible, nevertheless true, situation. At the same time, he has referred to his works from the last two years, i.e., to the series prepared for the exhibition held at the area of Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe in Paris, where his painting objects were intended to function as fragments of the architecture, while not being them. At present, Gilewicz has been making an illusion again, playing with the reality, wishing to achieve his goal in a different way. As usual, he has entered the space “in between” – the unreal and the real.
