SHE DANCES IN THE SUN [...] AND SOMEWHERE OVER THERE, AN ORANGE CLOWN IS PLOTTING HOW TO STEAL THE NOBEL PRIZE FROM OLGA TOKARCZUK. NO PASSARAN!

You see a single work (a triptych) that offers insight into the evolution of the artist’s creative process toward a bold limitation of expressive means in favor of narrative and content. Tomasz Jakub Sysło He himself admits that after an intense period of exploration, he has reached a point where doubt gives way to certainty, chaos to order and rules, expression to a well-developed concept, and spontaneity to contemplation and self-reflection. We would say that the artist speaks in an artistically mature language, though one that is, of course, still open to change. Creative humility and a readiness to take on further difficult challenges are evident in his work. This noticeable change corresponds in parallel with the artist’s recognizable—and still present— overwhelming sincerity and conventional naivety—characterized by a deliberate abandonment of modeling or the use of simplified lines and an inserted word that completes the whole expression. At the same time, the artist has long been persistently exploring the theme of interpersonal relationships and the perfect connection, not only on canvas but also in life.
In his art, he repeatedly asks: Among all the relationships we enter into throughout our lives, how do we choose the true one? How do relationships shape our identity? How much truth is there in what we feel and what we see? What is the truth of existence and the world around us? With almost childlike simplicity and sincerity, he creates a series of large-format variations on the theme of connection. These figures, intertwined in a tender embrace and intimate rapture, despite their simplified form, speak with great emotional power about the human desire for closeness and love.
Or perhaps the aforementioned triptych, depicting a floating toward the sun, unaware of the looming danger, may speak to the need to express one’s own physicality, but also to the confrontation between good and evil, light and darkness.
In Tomasz Jakub Sysło’s works, we constantly encounter an affirmation of life in all its shades, from cloudy to sunny days. As we gaze upon these imagined painterly worlds, we have no doubt which side to choose. We instinctively follow the sun, the poppies, and the green of the plant stems. A palpable spring breeze of optimism compels us to look to the future with the hope that after every storm, sooner or later, the sun will shine again."
Curatorial text: Barbara Haręża