Tomasz Prymon, Infinity

What do we see in a seemingly extremely flat surface of a painting? What do we get into, surveying the elongated, crosswise, slanted colour strips? The answers to these questions define the utmost artistic asset of the young artist Tomasz Prymon, currently exhibited in Sandhofer Gallery.

Beholding Prymon’s thickly-painted pictures, we primarily grasp the expansion of colour. The intensive, overwhelming tone overflows the edges, taking in the adjacent walls of the gallery space. The colour is here both the expression of the thought of the artist himself, and the reflection of the viewer’s emotions. The main physical quality of the works are the long strips of colour, traversing the whole canvas either horizontally or vertically. At first glance, presumably flat and even, they subsequently reveal textural richness, the authentic spatial form. The multiplied lines convey a fragment of some greater, presumptively infinite whole.

At the same time, the artist embodies a scientist who makes use of human imperfect vision. Apparently, the author draws upon the scientific output of optics, physiology and psychology of visual perception. The fragmentary encoding of vast colour schemes, allows the spectator to get the impression of, the seemingly even and flat space, as mentioned above. The perfect, almost unnoticeable diversification of subtle tones on a big canvas, enables us to examine the details solely in close-up. However, it is only by looking at the whole at a greater distance that lets the spectator spot the intricacies and colour blends.

The aspect of the imperfection of human vision and its implementation by the artist is best illustrated by pointillism ( Fr. pointiller – to point, stipple ), that is the neo-impressionistic technique of shaping up the form of a painting. In this mode, the picture is built upon filling it with thickly distributed dots and lines applied with the brush tip. To form an image, the dots and lines observed from the proper distance, simply need to merge in the eye of the viewer.

In his linear compositions the artist likes to make use of contrasting colour schemes. The colour strips blend cold blue with warm yellow shades. Frequently, the fusion appears to be really abrupt, but through more in-depth analysis of details, it comes forth as soft and subtle. As the horizon joining up the earth and sky, blurring the line between the sacred and profane. Such colour variety is achieved by Prymon also through the study of light whose efficient application results in the effect of near transcendental luminance.

This unusual combination of the physical properties of the artwork, that is the colour, light and linear painting signs, raises the question of the idea behind their application, the premonition of the artist and their effect on the viewer. Presumably, these unlimited strips of colour, traversing the whole canvas, are a part of some greater and, allegedly, infinite whole. The titled Infinity, emerging somewhere from the depths of the Prymon’s paintings, arouses curiosity and implies the question of the viewer: where does it lead to? Constituting a part of a greater composition, Prymon’s works allow room for imagination and own interpretation of the beholder. In this rigorous mode of the geometric composition, each viewer might find the secret nature which draws attention and hypnotises through both formal and informal means of expression. The contemplative effect of the paintings allows for versatile interpretation, depending on one’s own need for connotations. It is possible to see therein extraordinary subject matters, a new universe, the priority of nature, as well as the exceptional meticulousness in the use of the brush and oil paint. Although the mode of visual apprehension of a painting solely through the form itself, seems limiting for the wide scope of interpretation of Prymon’s art.

The intention of the author is to make room for creative thought of the spectator. It is the beholder who constructs these quiet and likewise screaming pictures anew. Abstract forms free from factual perception, endorsing an interpretation which apparently might have never been the intent of the artist himself. The paintings do not limit but rather conceive the new nature, the nature of a picture, giving rise to the possibility of a real creation, both for the artist and the spectator. The relevant quotation, which might embrace the art of Tomasz Prymon, is of Jean Dubuffet’s on the inclinations of the abstract painting : “ I love (…) the vast, empty spaces, wherein neither an obstacle nor a marked trail imply the direction of the way, where there is not even a notion of a way itself”.

Sandra Zagajna