Barbara Wróblewska-Bogoon — Świątynia Nomadów

GRAYNESS TINTED WITH POETRY

Marcin Kołpanowicz’s pastels are a retelling of youthful dreams. Above the steppes of vast horizons, there are misty skies here, veiled by scattered clouds. There are pale lights on the edge of the earth. And as is often the case in dreams, the reality of the image is disrupted by a fleeting, unspoken thought. Places are sometimes uninhabited or endowed with a figure. The collection of drawings from the current exhibition at the Old Gallery is titled "Images of Various Places". It is an apt name—taken from Leonardo da Vinci’s A Treatise on Painting. It recalls the Leonardesque concept, suggested many times to students of art, of drawing painterly inspiration from observations that are seemingly trivial and simple.

Leonardo said: "If you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene, you will be able to see in them a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees...". Marcin Kołpanowicz initially treats this advice almost literally. He draws a wall. One gets the impression that he traces a fragment of a facade with almost analytical focus. He is faithful to colors and shapes. And then, the Leonardesque "awakening of the spirit of invention" begins to take effect. The flawed wall opens windows onto distant landscapes. Absides lose their rigid contours. The dream begins...

The first one—urban. The second dream—about a journey. With a traveling wagon upon which expectation is drawn. One might find oneself standing in the middle of a field—there is so much air, so many clouds. A lonely wanderer with a suitcase and a backpack follows the stone stream of the road—one only needs to ask: is he still walking? I saw an annex of floors and balconies, blue, not rooted by any foundation in the earth. A lamp bowl suspended from a wire thread, lending light to a stretch of fading grass. Finally, the Temple of Nomads—wandering peoples.

Marcin Kołpanowicz’s drawings are both illustrative and metaphorical. They grow from a grayness tinted with the color of poetry. They are well worth seeing.