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.
