PATRYK RÓŻYCKI: TRANSFORMATION

A series of paintings dealing with the artist’s childhood and adolescence in Poland’s countryside, marked by socio-economic exclusion amid the country’s transition of the 1990s, and the embarrassment and shame involved. Individual works are records of private memories from the artist’s life, or from those of his family and friends.

 

Class stratification and inequalities are among the central themes in Różycki’s output. His style is deliberately realistic, story-centered and formally simplified.

 

Speaking about the paintings in which his family members are depicted, Różycki said: “By showing their difficult lives I wanted to reflect once again on the complexity of relationships in our [Poland’s] society. For a long time I was hindered by a lot of things, such as low income, or alcohol consumption in the family, which had been the elephant in the room, or my social background in general. As the center of gravity shifted from me and my personal feelings to my close ones, their life stories, I found it easier to make out what is actually true, as far as my memories are concerned; this helped me mature as a person.”