„This is not an abstraction”. The phrase Sławomir Pawszak (b.1984, lives i works in Warsaw, Poland) has chosen as a title of his presentation obviously relates back to its famous predecessor – Rene Magritte’s “Ceci n’est pas un pipe” – the title he had given one of his notorious works. And in that case, indeed , it was not a pipe. It was an oil- on-canvass representation of it. In case of Pawszak’s works, things get a bit perverse: what we have before our eyes when looking at any of the artist’s works, as a matter of fact, looks abstract enough to be called abstractionist art in most other cases, - these, however, are not to be taken at face value: their appearance may deceive, as although they look abstract, in fact, they are not. For one, the artist himself made it known on several occasions that he paints from photographs and bears in mind very specific portions of reality while working. We have to take his words bona fide as the motives in Pawszak’s paintings defy recognition: identification of any of them with a real thing – a pipe for that matter, or anything else – is impossible. And still, that apart, there is too much realness in them, that they just cannot be called abstract. The painterly surface of canvass, the very substance of paint, its depths of texture – almost relief-like, the traces the paint leaves when flowing down, blotches and planes, the chromatic interrelations, composition of elements within the formal framework : this is not abstract art – oh no. It is reality. Painterly one. Pawszak is trying to restore to us viewers the primary experience of the art of painting, so that when looking at a painting, we would actually be seeing it instead of trying to keep pace with endless forking references that so often lead us astray, further and further away from the work we stand face to face with.

Many times before and for many painters have formal quests ended up against a wall at the end of an alley which had eventually proven blind and were finding themselves in a situation when painting is no more. Pawszak, however, seems to be travelling that same road, only in a reverse direction. He is one painter who starts with a wall close behind his back, as the nature of the formula he chooses to employ is in its extremity – it is a small step from where he starts from to the point of ultimate non-painting. His starting point is next to nothingness: a tiny fragment on a vast emptiness of a canvass. It is as if starting anew with the art of painting: just when we were about to call it a day and proclaim ourselves the ones who have lived to see all results of every thinkable decision a painter can possibly make, a man steps forth and dares take the first step into the great unknown, as if nothing has ever happened or existed and makes each simple gesture, each stroke of brush regain its primordial importance. The plane of canvass, which seemed all but undiscovered, turns out to be a terra incognita still demanding its testimony in a painterly cartography.

Stach Szabłowski

It has been only a year since Sławek Pawszak drew attention to his talent presenting his painter’s diploma at the Center for Contemporary Art Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw. The concept of large-scale white canvasses with tiny bits of reality painted on them has grown out of Edmund Husserl’s "Phenomenology". It was an attempt to look at the reality in a way, which the artist himself described as “careless tourist’s”. Pawszak unambiguously positioned himself in relation to the art of painting; he was disinterested in narration from day one. What intrigues him most are the properties of the painterly medium as such – beginning from the substance of paint, via the specificity of the very act of painting and all the way to the ambiguous situation of the art of painting of today; on the one hand treated and acting as a fetish, on the other, stigmatized as the obsolete area of contemporary art world.

The „Forty degrees in shade” exhibition collects paintings and objects created in the last three months. In the drying room on the 8th floor of the block of flats where Pawszak lives, layers upon layers of his painterly activity amassed, traces of paint and oil, blotches, traces left by wiping of brushes, unfinished canvasses, some cut to pieces standing against the walls. Pawszak takes an intimate look at those remnants and paints their portrait. The art of painting thus becomes utterly narcissistic and self-devouring activity. Self-sufficient and therefore devoid of any outward pretence.

Painting interests me as a medium per se; as a specific kind of activity on the field of art.
I feel that paintings never cease transgressing; they never are what they are and that only - paintings are always contextualized; every element in a painting has its own weight - even the tiniest of gestures automatically links back to art history. There is no ‘zero', or neutral situation - every single manner of painting conveys meaning and it is virtually impossible not to be constantly aware of that while painting. It has all been done before and there is very little room left, but that I find particularly interesting a pretext to work in this field.

Painting as an artistic genre remains in ostensible separateness in relation to other media as a result of a division into painting and non-painting. Jacque Rancière in his essay "The Politics of Aesthetics" outlined this discourse setting it within the new and very interesting perspective observable in the phrasing he chooses when sets out to redefine complex phenomenon referred to as ‘contemporary art' - he says: "That which replaced the art of painting(...) that, which occupies spaces deserted by portraits.[...]". Another quotation from the same text, which corresponds well with my way of thinking: "Painting is not just one among many arts. Its name denotes a certain arrangement (dipositif) of exposition - of a certain form of art's visibility"

A specific form of art's visibility, deeply rooted in social consciousness. It is both reflexive and referential - just think: among the group of viewers with little-to-none artistic literacy, nearly every one of them starts seeking recognizable bits of reality whenever confronted with an abstract painting.

Painting as art carries with it a hidden promise of meaning and every single instantiation of a painting is immanently contemplative.

The new series of my works, before anything else, treat about the process of painting and bring to the fore the entire by-product of my previous works; I have portrayed the half-painted, abandoned pieces, frayed or otherwise damaged canvass, oil-stains, oil-trodden floors. It all bears witness of my earlier activities. I think the need to portray the process of painting itself - which is, after all, my immediate reality - is fair enough a reason to start painting. I enjoy the closed- circuit quality to it, the frailty of it, that the forms are literally picked up from the ground - it is recycling of sorts.

I meant my new paintings to be contemplative - I deeply resent painting getting entangled in the run-of-the-mill life's routine. Art needs not be unambiguous and I Like this about it. I feel strongly for objects that leave us in uncertainty, because the link back to our subconscious and I like those works which evoke the sense of loss and helplessness at first contact.

The paintings are covered with patina or similar, which performs the same for a painting as the pedestal does for a monument - adds importance through the hint of distance it introduces.: they are worth while, the paintings - the patina suggests. Besides that, it adds an old-fashioned, out-of-date air to them.

I am most interested in those moments, when something eludes us, I enjoy looking at things, observing as such, without thinking about what I see. I have a name for this particular mode of visual activity - I call it: "the careless tourist's mode" (trybem patrzenia beztroskiego turysty).

Sławek Pawszak