Tomasz Kręcicki Sticked, 2023

Tomasz Kręcicki‘s depictions of body parts can evoke a sense of anxiety and foreboding created by implied physical threat, for example, of two fingers apparently stuck together. 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.

Scale and the body are major motifs employed in this process of estrangement. Another recurring motif then are grotesquely enlarged fingers that have an absurdist element but also evoke the artist’s continued exploration of the abstract in figuration. Yet, the recurrence of fingers, hands and eyes, also refers to a painter’s tools. Underlying his iconography runs a kind of bathos: the mockery of earnestness, undercutting aspirations through absurdity, jokes, and wit. Kręcicki’s subject matter then is inherently existential and addresses both contemporary politics and its repercussions on the individual.