Zbigniew Oporski

The image of “Gruzfall” and a flying bird with chicks was created as another of several planned versions of the original idea from 2020. I wanted to deal with this topic again, to capture and paint differently what appears in my head very often when creating the prototype. In a way, this is my curse, because sometimes the version of the idea puts a question mark over the current job, which can be annoying and frustrating. I wanted to give the presented topic as much space as possible, which was helped by the exceptionally large format of 150 cm on the longer side. The idea itself is a visualization of my feeling, impression or awareness of the end of human existence in the broad sense of this issue. It is difficult for me to describe this state in a few sentences, like other mental states, because it would require extensive development of each of them, which would probably be monotonous and ultimately boring or even grotesque. Both the image and the music do it – I have an impression through other channels – probably more accurately and directly, allowing for a non-semantic dialogue. The source of this pessimism is both internal and external. The first, as a centrifugal impulse felt already in early school age, as the accompanying atmosphere of all-fatalism, failure, losing the world in the fight against itself, the advantage of vices ultimately leading to total collapse and nothingness. In the human world, I do not see a positive point from which all this would somehow begin to fall into place, compromise, merge to remain in relative peace. It is quite the opposite. I also find it, in person, with the difference, whether by hope or the opposite, with the fear that in the basic form – that is, biological survival – I will manage to maintain my own existence, despite all the difficulties, that by some miracle I will manage to survive the minimal and how precious the autonomy of being, allowing it to be separated from the rest of the world. The second sensation takes the form of a flooding ocean of negative information, resulting from the observation of the outside world, the collision of which with the remnants of positive content leaves dust from the latter. The age-old conviction that nothing can stop the processes described earlier. Both impulses are related mostly to the same thing – just the outside world. In its basic, modern form, it reminds me of civilization. The one with the city, and thus with architecture, as a derivative of the basic, component of human activity, i.e. creating a shelter (home) from the environment. Hence the idea of ​​macro-scale decaying buildings as an endless waterfall (rubble). This is a slightly different version than the original, in which, apart from buildings, I painted everything like flies, monuments, faces and other symbolic elements. Here, city rubble plays the first fiddle, although there are a few elements that are completely different from the base. While painting the first layer, I found that I would add an element that was supposed to be the main topic of another work, namely a huge gap that would suck everything in. A moment later, formal dependencies, a certain desire to play with light and for the general perception of the image, I placed the main light source behind this aperture, which of course contradicts rationality, but this is not the point here and with single rays I illuminated individual parts of the work. At one point, I felt an urge to paint something alive, to emphasize the stillness of the scene and enhance its drama. In the first idea there was a bird, which I painted immediately and which was to be torn because it suited me like the architectural ruins. The hand guided the brush differently and it came out quite smooth, relatively clean bird, which is in a way contradicting the whole. Initially, this deviation irritated me, which in turn led to the thought of adding two chicks, one of which falls into the abyss due to the loss of strength by an adult. Until now, a bird that looks like “from too good a home” irritates me a bit, but on the other hand, its dissimilarity may give the viewer more question marks. That thought held me back from reworking, and I ended up leaving it as it was. I consider the theme of “Gruzfall” to be still inexhaustible and I plan to continue to associate with it in subsequent versions.

The painting depicting a dead city covered by a huge sheet carried by birds was created in 2021, and the work on it took two months and was finished at the turn of March and April. I do not remember when the idea on this topic arose: whether it appeared as a variation of the city with a pet, or maybe it arose at a different time. And I remember the frame that appeared before my eyes, which was similar to the one presented, and the starry sky as the third plan of the whole. On the constructional level, I wanted a kind of pathos of the scene, in which flying headsless birds hold a damaged canvas, which is ultimately intended to cover the city, completing its end. Originally the birds were supposed to scream to add more drama to the scene, but after painting the sketch, I found silence to be more fitting and without losing the drama. That is why I removed the heads of the birds, which probably made everything even more dead. The initial idea was a huge fabric lying on the ground, which birds pulled over the ruins like a huge sheet, but in the course of work I thought to connect the second plane (fabric) with the third (sky), so that the sheet would flow down from the sky. I found it a more interesting solution and painted it. I wanted a highly saturated light reflected from the sky, which was balanced by a soft reddish light above the horizon on the opposite side. All this to reinforce the unreality of the situation. Sometimes I have dreams in this kind of lighting. As a complement to the whole, on one of the buildings I painted a figure making a silencing gesture. I do not want to describe the philosophical, or perhaps more ideological, part in order not to spoil the viewer’s inquiries and, contrary to appearances, it is not too great. When the painting entered the detail stage, the silence I thought at the sketch stage turned into the beginning of Carmina Burana’s “O Fortuna” with the characteristic sound of a choir, so sometimes I looked at it as a spectacle of silence, and at other times in the background I heard the beginning of the aforementioned work by Carl Orff. The picture is 100 x 118 cm and it is painted in oil technique on an aluminum plate.