Andrzej Walczak: “Imagination calmed”

The Centre for Artistic Activities invites you to an exhibition of paintings

Andrzej Walczak: “Imagination calmed”

Vernissage:
October 9, 2026, 7:00 PM
ODA Gallery, 5 Dabrowskiego Street, Piotrków Trybunalski
The exhibition is open until October 18, 2026.

Andrzej Walczak paints with a feature of organic abstraction, based on his own technique. In the artist's paintings we look for references to the landscape, sometimes we discover characters; however, these are only suggestions, guesses that we cannot fully unravel. Referring to a portable multimedia device in common use, the artist gives his paintings the shape of a large painting smartphone. Was it a suggestion that the recipient should focus on the painting message instead of staring for hours at the screen of the device that has hooked us all?

Barczyńska Berry

Andrzej Walczak (born 1958) — painter, architect and entrepreneur. A graduate of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Lodz University of Technology. Co-founder of Atlas Group, the largest Polish manufacturer of construction chemicals. For years he has been involved in the construction process of the New Center of Łódź. Founder and owner of Atlas Sztuki — a non-commercial gallery of contemporary art, recognized as one of the most important Polish institutions of its kind in the first two decades of the 21st century. He has been developing his own painting practice for many years. His work has been presented in individual and group exhibitions, among others at the Museum Modern Art in Hünfeld, the Polish Institute in Prague, the Gallery of the Foundation of Modern Art in Kiev, the Dzyga Gallery in Lviv and the Kryga Gallery in Grodno, as well as in galleries in Krakow, Warsaw, Łódź and Zgierz, as well as in the 72 Gallery in Chełm and BWA in Tarnów.

At exhibitions of painting, the question arises more and more often: does art have the courage to accept that its task is no longer to show the world, but to construct the conditions for its understanding? Art from the dawn of time, whatever it may be, has sought to describe the world, and in it man (that is, what man sees, hears, feels).

It's probably the same today. But... what if the world is changing so fast that art no longer keeps up with its “painting”? The man, like in a moving picture, begins to blur. It becomes a gray and increasingly blurry spot. Art in crisis slows down. He wants to lean over a man. But he's gone. There is only an incomprehensible idea of a rapidly receding reality. We can't see anything anymore. Only sometimes someone tries to create an image for us. It often hurts us and dulls our sensitivity. Sensitivity — our support in knowing the world — is reduced to emotions. Mostly negative. What remains? Imagination calmed?

The world exists primarily in the imagination, therefore it should not be built according to patterns and schemes invented elsewhere, by their blind or even slightly modified copies. Universal method-cash does not exist.

This can be clearly seen in the superpower superworld.
This is clearly seen in the painting.
This is clearly seen in us. Calmed down.

The image is sensitive to the act of looking. Often whims. It is impossible to have at the same time complete ambiguity of meaning and full intensity of formal experience.

When you “tighten” the meaning, you often lose the pure energy of the form.
As you “tighten” the form, the meaning becomes less literal.

The more you insist on a clear “what it means”, the less you are left with “how it works”. One begins to measure the image by a different measure than “similarity to things”. We are not looking for answers, but for experiences that awaken something indefinite, perhaps even disturbing, but at the same time fascinating. It is a journey in which every moment is full of intensity, as if the boundaries between reality and imagination are constantly shifting. And perhaps it is this state of suspense — between desire and reality — that makes this journey so intriguing.

At some point, the relationships that were present in the picture from the very beginning come into tension, which is impossible to ignore. One begins to see more — not because the image changes, but because a certain way of seeing is triggered. It is no longer clear whether it is the image that reveals the next layers, or whether the viewer begins to see in a way that has hitherto remained beyond his reach. It is not just about creating images, but about building the conditions of vision.

This change is not accidental. It results from a method that has been developed consistently for years. Its purpose is not only to shape the surface materially, but to organize a situation in which vision ceases to be automatic. Attention is shifted from the image itself to what is happening on the other side — in the recipient. It is no longer about the simple relationship between the work and the interpretation, but about the moment when the gaze deepens. That is why the burden is so clearly shifted here to the throne of the man who is watching.

The gaze ceases to be a reflex and becomes a decision. Then not only the images themselves begin to be visible, but also tensions, relationships and shifts that may have previously remained unnoticed. What was supposed to be the background begins to take over. It is here that an experience is born that does not end at the moment of viewing.

Each of us can do this with an eye-catching image: to get lost. To get lost outside the language, to get lost without a clue. It's always worth doing it, not just in the galleries. This protects the common world from totalization, from averaging, from graying.

Andrzej Walczak