Slawomir Brzoska

 


HEN TO PAN

            "Thousands of things are bom and grow, and I watch how they return to their source" wrote Laozi in "Daodejing", later he emphasized, that this return is a fulfillment of their destiny. This experience of the world appears to me as a path without any concrete goal. It is a constant confirmation of the universal idea of return.
For the ancient Greeks, the artist is the one who draws "something" out. This concept of art as the discovery of being, is the same as understanding a universal rule that exists in the universe. It is discovery of truth.
            If we accept this definition, at the same time we deprive the artist of his god-like-status as a creator of things that can be subjected to aesthetic judgment. Here, the artist is more like an interpreter who deciphers and delivers meanings, drawing out truth by himself. In this way, he stands in the same line as alchemists, who experienced nature through experiment. Their methods were aimed at speeding up the natural development towards perfection (i.e. gold) of"immature" metals. Alchemist and artist are working in agreement with nature, never against it. This process of discovery and understanding took place in the quite solitude of a laboratory or in a studio. (In the oriental tradition the aim ot art was to imitate nature - in the way of its actions).
            According to my understanding, discovery through experience in art means to act through and for the work. It is a trace left by an artist to point out what was concealed before.
            Marcel Duchamp defined a work of art as a range of signs alternatively showing and hiding their meaning. To fully understand it we have to know language of sign and symbol. "Symbolon" in Greek means broken object like a bone or piece of wood, easily recognizable by people who own fragments that fits together.
            I return to pre-Platonic theories because taking from this source of thought seems to be right as well as the most reliable (Plato called it the epoch of thinkers). In reducing my means of expression (traces), I come to the most elementary' images such as a circle and a square and their combination - the mandala. This form is known in every culture. Its archaic roots reach back to the palaeolithical drawings, the so called "circles of the sun", based on the rule of the number four. Carl Gustaw Jung writes "things that reach so far in the history of mankind touch (...) deepest layers of unconsciousness and have an influence on it when conscious talk appears to be powerless. It is not possilile just to invent these things if they are to express the deepest insight into consciousness and the highest intuitions of spirit. They have to grow by themselves from the forgotten abyss. When emerging from the abyss, they combine a unique contemporary consciousness with the ancient past of life." In the simplest meaning, The mandala, as a combination of a circle and a square, shows the relationship between the Cosmos and the Earth. At the same time it is the foundation of all the images of contradictions. If in my works I come back to representations of polarity (white - black, inside -outside, vertical - horizontal, circle - square) I take it to be a confirmation of this universal rule of duality that everything is subjected to.
            Hen to pan (in Greek "one is everything") is an inscription inside the image of a snake eating its own tale in a XIV century alchemy manuscript. This sentence reassures me. Gnostic snake which symbolize the Universe, shows the meeting of the end with the beginning and gives a kind of metaphysical hope. This kind of hope comes back to life every year, when spring comes after winter. Everything revives and it is easier to walk in the heat of sun... .


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