Tomasz Kręcicki | Move | Esther Schipper | 14.03-17.04.2025

Move is Tomasz Kręcicki’s second solo exhibition, following his first exhibition at the gallery in Seoul in 2024, and will feature exclusively new paintings.

Tomasz Kręcicki’s conceptual approach gives the exhibition a cinematic dimension, in which each painting acts as a frame for a script whose details invite the viewer to construct their own story. The story of this exhibition is about a movement that begins when we enter the room and encounter the painting of a door that is itself the size of a giant door. Placed in the room like a film prop, it transports us into a fantastic world. Kręcicki’s paintings evoke a whole parallel world of impressions and even sensations and become springboards for our imagination: the monumentally enlarged details of seemingly ordinary objects are brief glimpses in close-up into a narrative that reaches into the past and, importantly, will continue. The events are anticipated and create a visual experience full of anticipation and suspense. Sometimes you even think you can hear a sound, smell a characteristic odour, smell a characteristic smell or even feel pain.

The actions depicted in the pictures convey a vivid impression of what it means to move. The artist, who anticipated his own move to another studio space when he conceived the exhibition, seems to have spun scenarios of such a move. The works can be loosely linked to specific moments in the moving process. One group presents objects – some of them massive and apparently well-loved as they are slightly worn – and they could represent the selection process: What will he take with him, what will he leave behind.

Another group of works depicts action: the actual transport of large furniture and heavy equipment carried by large hands over simplified geometric shapes that we immediately know are steps and stairs. Other images allude to the general tidying up that accompanies a move. In this context, clearing out is also understood as an act of personal stocktaking. Each of these works shows us a detail that is recognised and quickly leads to our own associations with what might happen next: Will the hand drop what it is carrying, will the fingers get stuck on an obstacle.

Paintings of potted plants form another group of motifs that point even more forcefully to the past and present and to a human presence: Someone has cared for them, perhaps they are a gift from friends or family. Depicted in various states, they speak of care, neglect, resignation, but also of resilience. Kręcicki uses the subject to demonstrate his extensive knowledge of and admiration for painters who have depicted plants in domestic settings, both the historical genre of vanitas still lifes and, more specifically, 20th century depictions. But in a twist characteristic of Kręcicki’s penchant for subtle humour, the artist also strategically employs cinematic tropes, such as the melodramatic fiery sky depicting the silhouette of a withered plant.

Despite the visual wit and playfulness often associated with the larger-than-life scale of his subjects, Kręcicki’s subject matter remains inherently existential, addressing both contemporary politics and its impact on the individual. For Kręcicki, who lives in Poland, his move was also reminiscent of people who have to flee their homeland, not in organised ‘moves’, but in often traumatic escapes from home, work or the country. He knows that it is a choice, even a sign of improvement and greater freedom.

About 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 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg (2014-2015). Residencies and scholarships: LIA Programme Residency, Spinnerei Leipzig (2018), MeetFactory Residency, Prague, (2018), Fores Project Residency, London (2022).

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

The artist’s works are in public collections, including: BY ART MATTERS, Hangzhou; Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art, Nanjing; Longlati Foundation, Shanghai; Hildebrand Collection, Leipzig; The ING Polish Art Foundation, Warsaw; mBank Art Collection, Warsaw; Krupa Art Foundation Wrocław; National Museum, Gdańsk.

Exhibition dates: Friday, 14. March – Thursday, 17. April 2025.