Duration: March 14 – April 30, 2022
Exhibition finale: April 28, 2022, at 6:00 PM
Leon Tarasewicz’s work prepared especially for the space of 66P refers to the subject of displacement. It is based on the stories of various communities whose members were forced to abandon their homes in the wake of wars, ethnic and religious cleansings, deportations and post-war treaties on the “exchange” of populations.
Losing a home is always connected with a trauma that leaves a lasting mark on the collective consciousness and historical memory of the affected group. The burden of violence, fear and harm, handed down over the generations, triggers a subconscious need to protect the house and its inhabitants by invoking higher powers. In everyday life, they are symbolised by sacred images, legends, rituals and the semantics of colour. In almost all cultures of the world, colour is used to mediate contact with deity.
Displacement is an attempt to look at the sacred through the prism of human negotiations with the spiritual sphere, whose stake is the human need for security and rooting.
‛It is worth bearing in mind that the Holy Family were the first refugees in Christian civilisation. St. Joseph set out from Bethlehem to Egypt, leading a donkey on which the Mother of God sat holding Jesus Christ in her arms.’ – Leon Tarasewicz
Leon Tarasewicz is considered one of the most intriguing contemporary painters. He was born in Waliły-Stacja near Białystok on 14 March 1957. He attended the Secondary School of Fine Arts in Supraśl, then he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, in the studio of professor Tadeusz Dominik. He debuted in 1984 with individual exhibitions at Galeria Dziekanka and Galeria Foksal in Warsaw. His foreign debut took place during the Dialog group exhibition in Moderna Musset in Stockholm (1985). In 1996-2009 he ran a studio (first as an invited guest, then permanently) at the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.
A laureate of many awards and distinctions, his paintings are in all significant Polish collections and many foreign ones (Moderna Museet in Stockholm, National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, Tufts University Gallery in Boston). His works have been exhibited in Stockholm, Venice, Berlin, New York and Barcelona, among others. In 2009, together with Sokrat Janowicz, he established the Villa Sokrates Foundation. Apart from painting, his passion is breeding decorative hens. He lives in Waliły in the Białystok region.
Organisers of the exhibition: Studio IART, 66P
Production: Anna Grześ, Michał Grześ, Dariusz Sadurski, Andrzej Cybulski
Curator: Artur Ulrich
The icons used during the exhibition have been borrowed from the collection of the Museum of Icons in Supraśl – a branch of the Podlasie Museum in Białystok and an Institution of Culture of the Podlaskie Province co-run by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.