To Empty Out Krzysztof Grzybacz

Mendes Wood DM is pleased to present Krzysztof Grzybacz’s latest body of work in his first solo exhibition at the gallery in Brussels.  

Behind its seemingly polished framework, To Empty Out emerges as an exhibition beautifully rife with contradictions that overlay serious and playful themes according to Grzybacz, who often sets out to “clash the forces” of gravity and levity through his chosen subjects. Through sublime florals, bawdy scenes, and raw portraits of social life, Grzybacz balances contemplation and observation, navigating between painterly precision and intuitive expression in this deeply personal exhibition. Grzybacz starts each painting with sketches and drawings, but once confronted with its white plane, the artist gives himself up to the canvas in a stream of consciousness – emptying his psyche out as he follows his intuition in dialogue with the painting’s surface in a spontaneous yet ambitious free-flowing conversation grounded in precision and skill. 

In contrast to early displays of still lifes that depict manufactured products, such as cosmetics, lighters, and nail clippers, To Empty Out centers around flowers, a frequent subject in Grzybacz’s paintings from 2022 onward. He notably approached the botanical motif in Colors of the Eyes (2022), which explores the color palette of his subject’s irises through a line of flowers. Grzybacz’s latest body of work continues the trajectory through works that combine chrysanthemums, dahlias, primroses, ranunculuses, poppies with the body, human tissue, self-portraiture. Unsaturated polychromatic compositions draw from nature and memory, reflecting the artist’s belief that flowers, each carrying its own hue, “are the true heroes of color.” Grzybacz, who sees his depictions of flowers as a rebellious step away from expectations set for him as a contemporary artist, eschews outright references to the lexicon of painting. While working with an art-historical awareness, the nature that surrounded the artist during his childhood, along with his drive toward nature’s perfection, defines much of his recent focus. The structure and display of the flower motif are also the result of a meditative painterly process: “When I paint flowers, I do not go back to photos or a catalog. I’m trying to recall my own catalog.” The flowers of his imagination bloom on the canvas in a geometric, rhythmic, even universal, order.  

Grzybacz’s latest works are characterized by a visceral, literal layering of the exhibition’s central theme. Bodily, primal, and chaotic, the works often depict vivid human interactions: the chatter in which one empties out oneself through verbal and physical communication with another. The flowers appear here as grotesque embellishments, human satire. The painter is a quiet observer of a rowdy crowd; he pays notice to laughter, teeth, and body parts clumsily falling out of clothes. The elements mirror and multiply each other, blooming and unfolding, sprouting and overlapping in a continuous motion, dense yet fluid, layered, flourishing turmoil. Between living presences and nature morte, “The symbol of flowers has a social sense; they are destined to die and disappear,” says the artist, who took symbolic inspiration from pyrogenic plants that flower in response to fire when creating the works in To Empty Out.

Ultimately, the painter’s technique demonstrates masterful balance and organization. He constructs his imagery by clearing away surplus paint to uncover, explore thinner layers. This process of swabbing down the excess gives his works a hard-to-capture halo, an otherworldly quality. In their depiction of conflicting forces, the works assert a rarely encountered steadiness – they transmit that comforting quality of looking at an image that seems certain and defined. It is a process of removal, of emptying out of the surface to leave space only for the quintessential conveyors of form and meaning.  

– Helena Czernecka