TOMASZ JĘDRZEJEWSKI (born 1984)

In the years 2004-2009 he studied sculpture at the Poznań Academy of Fine Arts. He obtained a diploma in the field of sculpture in the studio of professor Danuta Mączak. Since 2009 he is a member of the Wielkopolska Association of Sculptors and from 2018 he has been its President. In the years 2012-2016, he was an academic teacher at the Department of Drawing, Painting, Sculpture and Visual Arts at the Faculty of Architecture of the Poznan University of Technology. In 2016 he obtained the title of Doctor of Arts in the field of Visual Arts, in the artistic discipline - Fine Arts. Currently, he is an academic teacher at the Department of Green Areas and Landscape Architecture at the University of Life Sciences in Poznań. He works in diversified sculptural matter, creating installations, small forms and spatial objects. In his artistic activity he shows the broadly understood theme of existence and emotionality; he is interested in the attitude of man towards others, not necessarily people.

"The exhibition by Tomasz Jędrzejewski refers to the Renaissance tradition of curiosities, which - being a collection of art, craft and natural objects - were a microcosm, a source of knowledge and authority of their owners as well as a symbol of their control over the world. In "kunstkamers", religion, art, science and myth coexisted, and after time curiosities, an unusual and unique objects, started to play a significant role. The monstrous hybrids of people and animals or the deformed faces of Jędrzejewski's sculptures refer to this fascination with distinctness and otherness. The objects resemble both hunting trophies and classic busts draw on both history and contemporary culture. The literalism and exaggeration of these "face-to-face" objects serve as grotesque repetition of the frightening images of diversity that function in the visual tradition. Here the distorted faces are not only a pop culture contrasted with classical ideals of beauty and harmony, but they also reveal a fascination with the ugly and fear-provoking, inviting reflection on contemporaries and presentations of otherness and fear.

Text: Dr Małgorzata Miśniakiewicz

Photographs: Krzysztof Ślachciak

Photos: Agnieszka Bereta