Tomasz Kręcicki

Tomasz Kręcicki, born 1990 in Żary. Lives and works in Kraków.

The artist studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (2010-2015) and the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg (2014—2015). Residencies and fellowships include LIA Programme Residency, Spinnerei Leipzig (2018), MeetFactory Residency, Prague, (2018), Fores Project Residency, London (2022).

Scale and the body are major motifs in the paintings of Tomasz Kręcicki. Grotesquely enlarged fingers, for example, engage in various undefined activities. The paintings have an absurdist element but their formal reliance on simplified and sometimes repeating shapes also evoke the artist’s continued exploration of the abstract in figuration. A surrealist unreality imbues the artist’s depictions of common activities and everyday objects, recalling a Lynchian atmosphere but often cut with a dash of the campy spookiness of B-movie horror. Yet, the recurrence of fingers, hands and eyes, also refers to a painter’s tools.

A major theme has been a kind of bathos: the mockery of earnestness, undercutting aspirations through absurdity, jokes, and wit. At the same time, works depicting everyday objects such as long wires to repel birds, push pins or even a loose button, can evoke a sense of anxiety and foreboding created by the implied physical threat and the cryptic nature of the implied narrative content. Kręcicki’s subject matter then is inherently existential, addressing both contemporary politics and its repercussions on the individual.

Institutional solo exhibitions include Light as a feather, Longlati Foundation, Shanghai (2024); XXL, Muzeum Regionalne, Stalowa Wola (2020); Spirit level, Grey House Foundation, Kraków (2019); XXL, BWA Tarnów (2019).

Institutional exhibitions as part of the artist group Potencja include Potencja – Humoral Theory: Quattro Stagioni, Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała (2022); Potencja – Humoral Theory, BWA Zielona Góra (2021).