Interview: Zofia Małysa-Janczy
BETWEEN REAL AND IMAGINED
Jan Tyniec talks about how photography, drawing and painting intertwine in his artistic practice.
Interview: Zofia Małysa-Janczy
BETWEEN REAL AND IMAGINED
Jan Tyniec talks about how photography, drawing and painting intertwine in his artistic practice.
The beginning of your artistic path is marked by paintings from the early 1980s, in which various styles, references to the allegory of the absurd and quotes from the history of art are mixed. In your later work, you also use the medium of photography and drawing. To what extent was the extension of the repertoire of artistic means related to the trip to New York, where your studio was located since 1987?
After arriving in New York, I was completely absorbed in painting, working on large format paintings, but since 1995 I have been taking more and more photographs, which changed my thinking about drawing and painting. Painting offers unlimited possibilities of modification, in photography you need to make decisions quickly, discipline is important. Over time, the techniques I used began to intermingle more and more, paintings with collage elements were created, with minimal use of traditional painting tools, mainly brushes, and with the use of a controlled chance.
In the late 1990s, I was working on Indefinite Boundary: Desert photographs, and in my studio in Manhattan on a series of drawings with the same theme. I spent a lot of time away from New York, photographing the deserts of the American Southwest. My thinking about photography changed rapidly. From morning until dusk, I observed water, sky, the changing light. I was mesmerized by the passing of time, light and space and used all excuses not to return to the studio! The result of these wanderings, apart from photographs, were drawings with elements of collage, using topographic maps of these uninhabited areas. When working on the drawings, I used cast wax, metallic paint, and fire. The intention was not to draw or paint traditional landscapes, but to create an archetype of landscape using basic materials. This process resulted in works suspended between the intellectual and emotional aspects of what is real and what is imagined.
Your artistic practice is largely based on observations made during your travels – from tropical islands, through American wilderness, to the land of eternal ice. In the memories of Bali, where the photographs in the series “Full Circle: Bali” were taken, we read about those moments where any interference could disturb the uniqueness of the experience: “I had a camera, but I couldn’t move. I was under the spell of magic and wanted to cherish this moment, afraid that any unnecessary gesture would do something to interrupt the perfection unfolding before my eyes. Has this feeling also appeared during other expeditions?
Yes, it happens quite often. I am not a reporter, but an artist, photography is a medium for me, just like drawing with graphite pencils. My works are the result of personal experience, digesting the emotions and energy of the place. If possible, I don’t photograph the unknown or the inexperienced. I have a need to create an intellectual and emotional bond with the chosen place and topic.
I also try to avoid “storytelling”. I do not give the names of the places where the photographs are taken. I avoid showing anything that would suggest the scale of the photographed object. I try not to limit the interpretation possibilities of my works.
Your projects are usually long-term, during which a given topic is explored for several years. Examples of such activities are the Bonsai photo series (2009-2015) or Grasses and Grass Shadows (2015-2020). How has the approach to the title motifs evolved over time?
These changes are mainly due to reflection on a given topic and observation of the light changing during the day. These are captured moments, real but easy to miss. Both Bonsai and Grasses and Grass Shadows are part of my interest in phenomena that arise on the fluid border between culture and nature. The landscape and the processes taking place in nature, strictly conditioned by time and space, are for me a starting point for reflection on the issue of individual and collective consciousness.
The camera is a tool that can show what we do not register. For me, photography is a kind of confrontation: showing something familiar, but in a non-obvious way.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, you have been implementing the Smoke Atlas cycle. The drawings shrouded in clouds of smoke recall a chronicle of warfare created on the basis of observations of the sky.
Having witnessed the ongoing war and the unimaginable suffering of the Ukrainian people, I am constantly working on the drawings from this series. Its title is a reference to David Mitchell’s book Cloud Atlas, which made a great impression on me. I try to limit my drawings to the scale of black and gray graphite pencils. Sometimes I add color, red or yellow. Working with hard pencils on a smooth surface reminds me of the obsessive scratching of a wall, the madness of a dead-end situation. Every line, every scratch can be a proof of life and the will to survive. These drawings are my daily, symbolic reminder of the identity of the defenders of Ukraine. Creating the illusion of space on paper, I negate it with vertical lines of sharp graphite. The materiality of these works is important to me. These are not as much images of sky and smoke, but walls of impenetrable darkness, over which I am working in search of meaning. For me, drawing is a ritual, meditation, a tool for survival, maintaining personal stability and mental balance, it is a daily protest against the tragedy, meanness and uncertainty that I witness from a distance. As after the eruption of the Tambor volcano in 1815, when volcanic dust and gases covered the world for three years, now the sky is covered with smoke from Ukraine.