Collection

Rafał Bujnowski’s work mostly draws on themes from his immediate surroundings. His paintings form small or large series that analyze the painting medium, often rejecting its traditional traits. In his piece Eye Sockets, Bujnowski offers cold, architectural images of an unfinished apartment block, reminding us of the ongoing economic crisis, and the empty buildings so familiar to the Polish landscape—symbols of rampant ambition, feverish zeal, and money (or the lack of it). Standing on the floor, these monumental paintings perfectly mimic the texture of bare concrete walls, the shiny black window openings like hyperrealistic three-dimensional objects. This series refers to his previous piece Lamp Black (2007), in which Bujnowski painted monochrome black canvases that look different depending on the angle or the light falling on them. As in Eye Sockets, the theme underlying those conceptual works was pitch-black surfaces reflecting light.