Contrary to other illustrators, Romanowicz is said not to smuggle even smallest elements of auto-portrait into his works. If so, he could well at least take after this chap. The artist’s head full of ideas and his unlimited imagination count for one of our most precious regional and national goods! It is indeed worth to be protected, treasured, treated with most caution and should be heavily guarded as such. The mysterious character in the drawing, which is sometimes called the Hatter by its author, may well be our guide to this world – the world filled with strikingly pleasant characters who are anxiously eccentric at times though, and marked with some romantic absurd. It’s also full of masks emerging from under lots of different faces. You can’t tell the difference between the living and non-living in this world as it’s hard to spot the boarder. Not only animals and plants but also objects have their souls (and sharp and meaningful looks).
The question is, how much does this world owes to its basic animism and how much to the nineteenth century tradition – the industrial revolution gasp, its basic science-fiction motifs such as toys turning into living and state-of-the-art inventions in this field? Let’s leave it unanswered for the time being.
As for the faces of the author – the following exhibition reveals surprisingly many of them. The Little Satyrykon Gallery has grown a lot. On the one hand, it’s the result of depth and wealth emerging from each painting, anecdote and casket model construction of these miniature assemblages. On the other hand, it’s due to author’s space arrangement talent revealed in practical use of almost every corner or niche which used to be unused so far. The content’s great: miniature installations, assemblages of them, author’s hand-made toys, photographs, tunnel books, ink drawings, original sketches for the recently published book and, of course, the paintings – some of which were specially made for this exhibition.
Robert Romanowicz The Pirate of Imagination
Satyrykon Gallery, Legnica, Rynek 36
3.01.-24.02.2018
Varnishing day: 26th January 2018, 6 p.m.
Naturally, it’s best to see it live, although thanks to the Internet, the artist’s already gained a crowd of lovers all over the world. Here are some links to sites where you could follow the effects of his creation:
https://www.behance.net/robertromanowicz
https://www.facebook.com/RobertRomanowiczPantone/
https://www.facebook.com/Thief-of-chairs-264395467316435/
https://www.facebook.com/MishaGrishaByRobertRomanowicz/
http://www.robertromanowicz.com/
http://pantonedesign.blogspot.com/