Ryszard Kosek

Ryszard Kosek has been artistically active for over twenty five years and has created – who knows? – maybe several hundred works, with at least four distinct stages that can be identified in his career so far. The entire period can be illustrated with a continuous, only at times slightly dotted line which nonetheless always continues forwards and, for the most parts, upwards, at first dark – very dark and gloomy, and later becoming more colourful and bright.

The artist’s earliest works were done on joined, raw planks of wood, cardboard, or even the doors from a long neglected cupboard – using a brush but also fingers dipped in tea or toothpaste. The represented imagery was invariably dark, depicting mysterious and menacing figures enclosed in an oval or radiant halo, with clearly discernible eyes and mouths, assessing the viewer with deep, piercing stares. The colourful backgrounds of symbolic nature radiated a certain anxiety that emphasised the supernatural overtone of the images. Due to their content, form and materials employed, the early art of Ryszard Kosek could be classified as art brut. It was characterised by evident self-expressive motivation, fully exhausted in the creative process itself – a compulsion that dictated the author’s imperative.

Nowadays, however, Kosek’s works are far removed from those dark beginnings. He organised and perfected his technique, but also discovered a newfound interest in other human beings and their mentality. The teeth may be still grinning and the eyes bulging, but there is nothing particularly sinister hidden behind these expressions anymore, they are simply anatomical features of the presented figures, possibly our windows into their moral integrity. Most importantly: the artist is now far more focused on telling the story of his subjects, their ups and downs, not shying away from lighter, even humorous overtones. Kosak’s oppressive painting of the 1980s is a thing of the past, remaining a telling illustration of a certain period in his life.

After the “imperative” period, the artist found a certain degree of peace, control in his works paying greater attention to the craft and enriching it with deep self-analysis. His technique became more deliberate: on a thin hardboard, using water colour and brush, only rarely resorting to his former tool of choice – his fingers. Kosek would repaint and reuse each piece of hardboard numerous times, without priming, in a manner that seemed hasty as if he feared to lose the grip of the moment, the theme, the inspiration. The paintings created in that period were highly dynamic, wildly expressive, featuring a plethora of hybrid figures (woman-snake, man-ape, etc.), demons and hellfire. Indeed, at times one had to wonder whether these were abstract imaginations or reflections of his own perception of actual “real” people. It seems that aside from the artist’s total engagement in his work, the paintings from that period, when analysed from the perspective of artistic value and general quality, were heavily influenced by the poster technique in which Kosek excelled. However, the impermanence of the pieces (multiple layers of paint tend to flake and peel off) as well as the desire to seek new expressive avenues, probably also the influence of the growing number of fans and admirers, led Kosek to eventually switch to oil paint, which has been his tool of choice ever since. He adopted the new technique almost on impulse and immediately found it perfect for his needs. The paintings started to grow in size, the colour palettes expanded. His characteristic figures with narrow foreheads and crooked teeth continued to fill most of each painting’s surface area, but the works now begun to feature masterfully arranged compositions including a surprising array of not just people but also pigs (!), cows, horses, dogs, cats and all manner of other God’s creatures. Kosek has a talent for emphasising the character traits of his subjects: he mockingly places them in prosaic situations, surrounds them with mundane, everyday objects, brands them with clearly readable attributes, depicts gestures and facial expressions. One of the critics observed that the artist’s imagination seems utterly uncontaminated by external influences and his themes are characterised by a deep social reflection tinted by a healthy dose of kind-hearted mockery. Kosek is not above placing a worded commentary in the background of some drawings, which suggests a certain impatience that compels the use of non-visual means of expression in order to convey short-lasting, strong emotional states such as outrage, anger, or helpless indignation. This observation is further confirmed by his common use of less than polite vocabulary. This clearly evidences the therapeutic, cathartic function of art which in this case forms the very foundation of Kosak’s artistic endeavours, possibly even more than that…

It is interesting to mention that the painted stories actually have a certain continuity also outside the painting – the artist is keen to talk about the later vicissitudes in the lives of the depicted characters when discussing them with friends. Admittedly, the use of the written or spoken word by “visual” artists in nothing particularly unheard of, indeed a common practice in the context of intuitive, spontaneous, so-called naïve art, i.e. art that is somehow a different, non-professional forms of expression whereof honesty and straightforwardness are key constitutive traits.

Ryszard Kosek is a mature artist. Technical challenges no longer make him anxious or apprehensive. He continues his original themes but enriches them by opening himself to new avenues as well. Today, he is able to draw inspiration also from the outside, he does not shun away from other artists’ works, is keen to learn, especially from the classics. He continues to perfect his craft by experimenting with copies and well known themes which he twists to fit his particular idiom. He tries to place “his” characters in abstract, colourfully elaborate spaces. This is evidence to his deep artistic self-awareness and reflectiveness about the craft he so devotedly performs. Were one to retrospectively evaluate Ryszard Kosek’s artistic accomplishments, one must first recognise the fact that the most important element thereof is not found in the many works included in numerous collections, but rather their original source - the quarter of a century-long transformation that took place in the artist’s consciousness, one that could be depicted as a continuous, only at times dotted line, always advancing, always rising towards colour and light. *

Since his birth i.e. for 55 years, Ryszard Kosek has lived in Płock (he was actually born in Gdańsk but that was only a short episode). Here, he graduated form the music school and worked for a short while as a music teacher. He also played in a jazz band called Loft. He first delved seriously into the world of painting at the age of 30, having first locked himself away in his apartment and greatly limited his contacts with the outside world.

Kosek’s first individual exhibition was “The Great Stage or a Song of Mortality” at Mazowieckie Museum in Płock (1994), which stirred a considerable critical interest in his works and led to a number of successive exhibitions both in Poland and abroad (e.g. in Brussels 1995, 1996; Bydgoszcz 1996, 2000; Rouen 1996; Bordeaux 1996; Lublin 1998, 2004; Warsaw 1999, 2005; Gdańsk and Sopot 2000, 2001; Radom 2005 to name just a few). In 2006 and 1007, several galleries in Poland exhibited Ryszard Kosak’s “First Images” painted even before the first exhibition. At the same time, galleries in Bydgoszcz, Szczecin and Poznań were showing some of his more recent works. Ryszard Kosek’s paintings have been included in the collections of Mazowieckie Museum in Płock, Malczewski Museum in Radom, Śląskie Museum in Katowiece, Ethnographic Museum in Toruń, Art en Marge gallery in Brussels. Some have been acquired by a number of private collectors including among others Dr Bolesław Nawrocki (Warsaw), Leszek Macak (Kraków) and Gerard S. Trefoń (Ruda Śląska). Kosek and his paintings were featured in two television productions: “Pęknięcie nadziei” [broken hope] (directed by Dorota Latour, 1993) and “Z ptakami fruwał” [he flew with the birds] (directed by Tadeusz Bystram, 2003). He received awards during three editions of the Teofil Ociepka’s National Painting Competition (organised in Bydgoszcz).

ZBIGNIEW CHLEWIŃSKI

Płock, 2 May 2012