Girl in a Red Dress. Almost Real. Yet Unreal

Exhibition Review

In Bartłomiej Gucma’s painting, reality seems to elude its own rules. Recognisable figures, interiors and objects quickly begin to function within another order. In the artist’s latest body of work – in which female figures occupy a particular place, although they are not conventional portraits – Gucma presents scenes that appear ordinary, yet are filtered through his own way of seeing them. It is precisely the tension between the familiar and the imagined that gives this body of work its peculiar character.

Gucma constructs his paintings around a tension between figuration and deformation. Faces and silhouettes remain recognisable, but their forms are subjected to expressive transformation. The contours are rendered decisively, at times almost nervously, while patches of colour overlap without any attempt at photographic precision. The body is treated above all as a painterly form: broken down into planes, lines and accents of colour.

An important role is played by the space itself. Interiors are not neutral backgrounds for the figures depicted. A vacuum cleaner, a washbasin, furniture, bags, boxes and other everyday objects become part of the composition on equal terms with the human figure. A syringe held by one of the figures, or the unsettling dialogue between a woman and her reflection in a mirror, nevertheless breaks through the apparent ordinariness of the situation.

This ambiguity is one of the more compelling elements of Gucma’s painting. The artist does not lead the viewer by the hand. Gestures, places and objects do not form a predetermined narrative – their mutual relationships remain open. Particularly intriguing is a work that can be viewed both vertically and horizontally. Changing the orientation of the painting brings different relationships between its elements to the fore and allows what appears to be the same composition to be redefined.