Remixing illusion. Krzysztof Wieczorek’s road from printmaking to painting

Abstract

Krzysztof Wieczorek, a Lodz-based artist who died in 2021, was an outstanding printmaker. In his creative pursuit, he revealed himself as an inquisitive modern mannerist. In his works, he “processed”, among other things, quotations from the paintings and prints of Hercules Seghers. Fragments of landscapes created by the Dutch artist complemented the landscape composed by the Polish artist.

Wieczorek used various graphic and painterly interventions to complete the picture. These efforts were aimed at differentiating the prints from the edition, making them unique. In his artwork Krzysztof Wieczorek used previously made matrices, also their fragments, juxtaposing them in various configurations. We can speak here of a kind of “remixing” of the artistic content. Wieczorek created variants of images and even sequences of them. The successive modifications of the graphic background were made largely through complex actions of a painting character.

In Wieczorek’s works, the base is both a homogeneous graphic print and their collage. The component parts could be executed in the etching technique, aquatint, mezzotint, drypoint, or come from a computer printout. The choice of technique (or techniques), the degree of destruction of the matrix (carried out, for example, by roughening, engraving and etching the surface) determined to some extent the further actions of the artist. So did the use of coloured papers for printing. The artist also experimented with substrates, using surfaces of canvas, cardboard or wood for his compositions. The graphic’s background was subjected to the painting interventions. The artist applied a layer of watercolour, oil or acrylic paint to the surface of the graphic. He would impregnate the surfaces with varnishes.

The essence of the creative inquiry undertaken by Krzysztof Wieczorek, of course, lies in maintaining a balance between the technical and technological aspects and the aesthetic qualities of the work and the content determined by the elements of the depicted world. In his search, the artist addressed the complex relations between what is graphic and what belongs to the painting domain. He was looking for a universal, integral language of visual communication.