DIARIES OF WŁODZIMIERZ PAWLAK 1989-2022

Discover the fascinating journey through thirty years of Włodzimierz Pawlak's painterly record of everyday life. This unique publication is not only a collection of diaries, but above all an intimate insight into the creative process of an artist who has documented his experiences with extraordinary consistency and sensitivity.

• Extreme introversion as the foundation of creativity
• Benedictine work and adherence to the age-old medium
• Instinctive and free approach to painting
• Incredibly human painting, engaging intellectually and emotionally
• Reduction of expression to the essence, which cannot be expressed otherwise than with paint
• Poetics of error of handwork, where the trivial meets the sublime
• Diaries separating content from the subject, limited to two variants of white

Włodzimierz Pawlak, fascinated by the meaning of Malevich's and Strzemiński's inquiries, tried to restrain the flights of imagination with the brake of laws formulated for art by this great tandem. Already in the heroic period of the sociologized and politicized Gruppa, he tried to reduce all servitudes alien to the nature of painting to the essence of such an expression, which cannot be done otherwise than with paint! In contradiction to the mission of the grouping/mother house, whose achievements, filled with the ambition of social service and political revolt, a diligently seconding critic expressed unequivocally: I remember how hard I tried to like it. Because it was right.

In Pawlak's painting, something became more right the more accurately it hit the rules of the field, the history of which was marked by traces on the rocks of Lascaux and Altamira. And those that he himself, at his father's command, left as a child on the famous green gate leading to the garden of the family home in Korytów. Close to the culture of the village. There, where awkwardness is a sacred weakness, but also the greatest mystery of expression. Where the trivial meets the sublime, distance with seriousness, the temporary with the final, and everything together in the poetics of the error of handwork.

The logical result of this path was the Diaries. Separating the content from the subject expressed in the title and limited to two variants of white. With one exception/prologue from the breakthrough year 1989 in the recent history of Poland. The white and red abstraction with the narrative phrase of the title Poles form the national flag from the threshold, from the first canvas, contained the fullness of the painterly features of the entire cycle. Paint ceases to be paint. It becomes an image. Sensual delight turns into a state of pure contemplation. Everything here works to the advantage. Especially, as is the case with chronicles, time works to the advantage. It extracts from the ectoderm of the unistically white canvases unexpected effects of temperature contrast. Intensely yellowing zinc white gradually opposes titanium white, sprinkled with the grayness of graphite dust. Time improvises here a warm-cold major-minor opposition, which is of paramount importance for painting.

The Museum of Art in Łódź presents you with a unique publication that will surely interest every lover of contemporary art. Włodzimierz Pawlak's Diaries are not only a record of everyday observations, but above all a testimony to the extraordinary sensitivity and talent of an artist who managed to capture fleeting moments and transform them into lasting works of art. We invite you to read and discover the fascinating world of Włodzimierz Pawlak's painting.