Konrad Żukowski
Heartwood

The Breeder in collaboration with Razem Pamoja Foundation are pleased to present Heartwood – Konrad Żukowski’s first exhibition in Greece with new sculptures and paintings, as well as a video filmed in an abandoned church near the Temple of Poseidon in Sounion and created in cooperation with Gabi Rosenzweig – a fellow artist and Konrad’s muse. All works were made during Żukowski’s four months residency in Athens and will be presented both at The Breeder and Razem Pamoja Foundation, Warsaw.

Żukowski’s imagination is filtered through a kaleidoscope of references – from Belarusian- born sculptor Ossip Zadkine, the music of Gustav Mahler, alchemy to mythologies and Surrealism. The exhibition develops as a psychogeography revolving around three main points: Witebsk as a birthplace of Ossip Zadkine and Eastern avant-garde. Warsaw as an important station of the avant-garde movement between East and West. Athens as a point of reference for the Surrealist movement’s interest in ancient Greek mythology. Surprisingly, for Żukowski these three points are knotted by a chestnut tree and it’s wood. Touched by Zadkine’s wooden sculptures from the 1920’s and 30’s, the artist revisits here childhood memories from his Polish village, situated not far from Witebsk.

Żukowski is part of a rising wave of Polish painters who revisiting surrealism, combining phantasy and figuration they invent their own language in order to deal with uncertainty, the political crisis in Poland, existential fears and the traumatizing change of the relation between humans and nature, esotericism and a quest for spirituality.

Taking his studio in Athens as a metaphor for his own freedom, Zukowski describes a highly personal world that is populated by a familiar cast of characters — of male gorgons, coiled up serpents, falling flowers symbolizing the cycle of life, trees and animals—positioned in front of dreamy natural landscapes. The result is a vibrant private language and a surreal universe that appears imbued with history while remaining personal and contemporary.

Two and three dimensions, experience and fiction, refer to and replicate one another, so that the figments of the artist’s mind obtain concrete existence. Simultaneously clashing and uniting locations the artist appears to conduct a permanent dialogue with his own oeuvre, and constructs a specific microcosm which directs the viewers to the realm of dreams, desires, subconscious fears, and anxiety.

Konrad Żukowski (b. 1995) lives and works in Krakow, Poland. He obtained a diploma in Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. Recent solo exhibitions include I keep smoking and waiting for everything to burn down, HOS Gallery, Warsaw (2021), DecadentBbanality: In Search of Extravaganza [with Jan Wolski], MOS, Gorzów Wielkopolski (2021), Upon Those who Step into the Same Rivers, Different and Ever Different Waters Flow Down, Clay, Warsaw, GGM1, Go all the way [with Wiktoria Walendzik], Gdańsk (2021),Global Abomination [with Mateusz Sarzyński], BWA, Warsaw (2020). His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including The Discomfort of Evening, National Gallery Zachęta, Warsaw (2022), Back to School, Rajem Pamoja Foundation- Mikolaj Rej high school, Warsaw (2022), Nobody Wants a Good Life, Rajem Pamoja Foundation, Krakow (2021), In these days of tumult, heat, and dazzle I retreat in my mind, Stefan Gierowski Foundation, Warsaw (2021), Don’t panic, kiss me, BWA, Wroclaw (2021), APH Exhibition, MoMA, Warsaw (2019) amongst others.