These paintings are made on a wooden board, usually 110 x 110 cm. They are created by grinding a surface in which disassembled ceramic fragments have been embedded in a disordered way.
The final appearance of the paintings is smooth.
In most cases, the painting is a part of the whole – a wall on which 12, 24 or 36 paintings are arranged together.
These works were exhibited primarily at the Starmach Gallery in Krakow in 1995, at the upper silesian museum and at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw in 1997 and in the National Museum in Szczecin in 2000.
Untitled | 2002 | Acrylic, clay, wood
The works are not titled.
The subject of this art project is a priori abstract. Personification of content is contained in the materials used: ceramic fragments and the achieved vision of the natural landscape emerging from the thickness of the canvas. Starry sky, an image of the cosmos, rocky desert but also an image of the skin.
When it comes to wall compositions, the artist approached the effect of the iconostasis, as he called it.
An image from the 1995 shows the plan of an iconostasis composed of white paintings.
Stones | photos by T. Struk
Drawing and quote from the poet H. Heine | notebook 1993-1994
Consider one relationship with the previous cycle: Next to prehistoric paintings in caves, appear dots made with clay or formed as a result of the reaction of iron oxide. Tomasz Struk reproduced these in his 1995 notebook.
What is the symbolic importance of clay in the memorial aspect of the cycle? It takes us back to ancient pottery and to the use of clay tablets for writing.
It is also a reference to the tessera hospitalis custom, in which the Ancients broke apart a clay tablet so that when people met again, they could put the two pieces of the broken tablet together in an experience of encounter and hospitality.
As emphasized by the artist, clay had another symbolic meaning in history. In ancient times, it was used, along with gold, to make funeral masks of the faces of the deceased.
An important role In the genesis of this series was played by the artist's visit to the collection of dermatological diseases in the Saint-Louis hospital in Paris. Tomasz Struk was impressed by the fact that AIDS changes the face and the skin of the person with the disease, making impending death visible.
He relates this to the work of Emmanuel Levinas and to the importance of the concept of the face in establishing the humanity of the other man.
Equally revealing is this quote from Heinrich Heine in the 1993–1994 notebook: We ask the question: what is God, the world, and man? And in the end, our mouths are just closed with a handful of clay. But isn't this the answer?
It is precisely in this reminder of my responsibility by the Face that calls on me, that demands me, that claims me: it is in this questioning of me that the other is my neighbor.
Emmanuel Lévinas
My "opening" in my work, offered to everyone, without any restrictions ("transcendence towards others as such"), does not eliminate the effort of moving in my direction.
Tomasz Struk – letter to Leszek Brogowski 1996
Installation in the Walter Bischoff gallery | Berlin 2002
Four proposals for colored paintings | notebook 1995–1996
Drawing of a "Wailing wall" | notebook 1995–1996
A blue "white" painting | notebook 1995–1996
