Slawomir CZAJKOWSKI [ZBIOK] (b. 1982), Fragile culture, from the series: Liberation, 2016

oil, canvas; 121 x 120 cm;
Signed, dated and described on the back: Zbiok / 2016 / Fragile / Culture / (Liberation / Serie).
Work presented at the exhibition:
- Slawek ZBIOK Czajkowski - Liberation / Liberation, Art Agenda Nova, Krakow, 14 October - 28 November 2016.

The creator of murals and urban interventions is associated with the Wroclaw street art community. His works have also been presented in gallery spaces. He is the author of the concept for several exhibitions, including Outside Artists. Out of Sth. (Wroclaw 2008) which is the first major presentation of this subject in Poland, as well as the creator of a documentary film dedicated to the Urban Art environment (premiered in April 2011). Tristan Manco, a critic specializing in the field of graffiti, ranked him among the most interesting artists of the genre. In his book Street Sketchbook (2007), he described him with the words: "playful, full of invention, referring to the classic graffiti style, the Ferdinand Léger of the present day." He has presented his work in many places at home and abroad, including Germany, Italy, the United States, the Czech Republic and France. He is the winner of the Grand Prix in the 9th Geppert Competition for debuting Polish painters in 2009, the same year he also received the Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.
Selected exhibitions: Artistic Life of Zielona Gora from 1945-2016, BWA Zielona Gora, 2016; ARTLOOP Festival, Sopot 2016; All this street art, Art Agenda Nova, Krakow 2012; Who hears me? I see nothing, Studio Gallery, Warsaw, 2009; Vicious Gallery meets Stillwerk, Vicious Gallery, Hamburg, 2009; Zbiok&Remed: It Hurts, BrooklyniteGallery, New York, 2009; Urban Portraits #9: No! Non Va!!!, Rialto, Rome, 2009; ZBK&Coxie:2gether, Baraka, Krakow [together with Coxie], 2008; ZBK&Joe83: WetWet JaguarShoes Gallery, London [together with Joe83], 2008; Important things of an unimportant mans life, Vicious Gallery, Hamburg, 2007; WetWet, Nabrezi Gallery, Prague, 2006.
"(...) Psychology is familiar with the pattern of people who routines, bad habits, or pernicious habits try to overcome by drastic change, release. This is not a kind of shock therapy, but rather an internal need to accentuate the moment of change, to move from an unacceptable to an expected phase. Such behavior is encouraged by new-fashion coaching, which recognizes and names the dynamics of needs. The term "stepping out of the comfort zone" has almost entered the everyday vocabulary. The belief placed in a change, a miraculous liberation to another state is a common phenomenon. After all, "liberation" is part of altered states of consciousness in people who experiment with stimulants, and finally religious experiences based on rites of passage. However, liberation is not an innocent gesture, nor is it a longed-for end to "evil." On the contrary, in the end we come to pay for it. (...) The paradox of liberation is that it does not lead us to free ourselves from habits at all, but only reinforces their persistence," says Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky combines photorealism with forms that reach toward the language of the new aesthetics. He mixes representations of figures with glitch, or derivative digital image aberrations. (...) These types of visual treatments surfaced a few years ago, and usually return in painting as carbon copies of collages made with digital technologies onto canvas. The paintings in the "Liberations" series are closer to Takeshi Murata's prints than to serious paintings. (...) The iconography of the latest paintings is just a slightly tempered chaos and a bag whose bottom is really deep. One could make a map of the links and references it brings to life.
Wanting to see Jean Arp, we'll see Arp, wanting to see Fernand Leger, to whom previous mural works have been compared, we'll see Leger, but next to that we'll see Snapchat screenshots, postcards from vacations, or outlines of characters taken perhaps from horror movies, or maybe RPG games. (...) Tchaikovsky tells us brutally that liberation is not there, although we still have to look for it. He himself finds liberation in something simplest, in the process of painting, which can be liberation, even from being a painter."
(Source: press materials, nova.art.pl, among others)