Standing… Seeing… Feeling
Exhibition Review
n his latest paintings, Janusz Kirenko leads the viewer into a space where the landscape becomes a vehicle for memory and a sign of transience. Each painting records places where the presence of water once shaped the landscape, while today only a trace remains, a barely perceptible presence dispersed through light and colour.
The cycle of twenty-five works does not seek to offer a faithful depiction of nature. Kirenko constructs worlds suspended between waking reality and dream, where observation intertwines with emotional experience. Streaks of rivers and streams merge with earthy tones and warm browns, creating paintings that balance between brightness and quietude, between what is visible and what has already receded, yet remains present in the experience of memory.
There is no narrative haste in these individual canvases. The scenes appear suspended, as though removed from the continuity of time. Deformed, gently twisted silhouettes of trees and fragmentarily outlined watercourses create an atmosphere of concentration. This is painting that demands attentiveness from the viewer, inviting them to stop, to pause, in keeping with the title of the exhibition, and allow the landscape to work in silence.
The motif of disappearing bodies of water takes on a symbolic significance in this context. It evokes the experience of transience, loss and memory, which do not disappear completely but settle in the viewer’s consciousness like a lasting sediment. Each painting acts as a subtle sign, reminding us that what passes leaves a distinct trace behind. Will the same be true of the experience of this exhibition? The answer remains with the viewer.
The small formats of the works reinforce the sense of concentration. The paintings employ a subtle interplay of light and shadow, leading towards a state of contemplation in which the intensity of experience arises not from expression but from restraint. Even where the depicted nature seems absent, its energy remains perceptible, recorded in the relationships between colours and the rhythm of the composition.
“...standing” is therefore not merely a story about landscapes that are disappearing. It is a reflection on the way we experience the world, on the moment of pause in which seeing and feeling become one. The exhibition offers neither unequivocal meanings nor closed interpretations. Instead, it leaves the viewer in a state of suspension, reminding us that sometimes simply remaining before a painting becomes the most appropriate response.
Janusz Kirenko
..standing. Oniric Traces
A dreamlike realm of vanishing water landscapes in twenty-five acts
November 2025
Exhibition closing event: 28 November 2025, 17:00
Property of the Lublin Theater Therapy Foundation. All rights reserved.
Realized with financial support from the City of Lublin