...and the world becomes a rainbow. Jakub Dominik.
Archive exhibition
Jakub Dominik / ...AND THE WORLD BECOMES A RAINBOW.
Artist: Jakub Dominik
Venue: 101 Projekt Gallery, Piękna 62/64
Dates: 02.12 - 16.12.2016
An excellent knowledge of the principles of composition, the combination of warm and cool colours in perfect harmonization, a textbook lesson in the execution of op-art, none of these satisfactorily explain the phenomenon of the paintings of Jakub Dominik. The brilliance of the artist’s craft, the sparkling spectrum of colours and the decorative surface of the paintings do not disguise the unique joyful romanticism manifested in them, together with an equally joyous affirmation of nature. Despite a clear "tendency" towards abstraction, the artist does not distance himself too far from representational art. Most of his paintings show landscapes or intimate interiors often dominated by ubiquitous cats. He frequently combines the two, showing a landscape as seen from inside a room, the view contained within the rectangle of the window frame. The basis of the synthetic nature of his paintings seems to be experience, arising from a careful and prolonged study of nature, allowing the artist to reveal the beauty of the natural world, and awaken the emotions. Extensive panoramic landscapes exude the sunny warmth of familiarity. Their raised horizons and compact fields, arranged in a hypnotic pattern of undulating hills, recall the photographic icons of the Polish countryside created by Paweł Pierściński and Kielecka School of Landscape. The artist creates the illusion of depth using a system of striped abstract colour fields or varied sizes of spherical shapes to depict the upper branches of trees. Dominik uses these techniques to construct patterns of geometric perspective. Another element of the composition is that in the heart of the image the colour values are more toned. The artist juggles opposites: he uses flat forms to create the illusion of three-dimensional space and employs abstract shapes and colours to create images of recognizable reality. The colourful sonority of Dominik's paintings awakens musical associations, in the sense that they possess a visual rhythm and have the power of appealing directly to the emotions. The viewer can truly feel the joy of creating beauty in painting and the equally great joy of being able to share it with others. And perhaps this - because it is so rare - is its greatest value.
Stanisława Zacharko-Łagowska