"Characters, Group Two" is an exhibition by Konrad Ziółkowski, featuring the artist's latest works created over the past year. This exhibition is a continuation of "Characters, Group One" at the Jung Hyun Gallery. Through his art, Ziółkowski encourages contemplation of the complexity of human experience, emotions, and expression. His constant inspiration for creating is the human being and their stories. He expresses his creativity using stone, metal, glass, color, and light, constructing his compositions to capture the essence of human emotions and gestures.
DITRON : A keyhole, a small slit, slightly ajar doors, I look through the gap between my fingers, cover my ears but just enough to still hear, curiosity outweighs my fear and judgment. My heart is pounding like crazy. I see a hundred terrifying monsters, I can't stop looking at them, I close my eyes, open them again, I see someone hugging? Kissing, why are they doing that naked? I close my eyes, open them again, someone is dying, maybe there was an accident, I see something horrible, something beautiful, I close my eyes and still see it all, I think I'll always see it, I don't want to remember. Now I have only this moment here among you, maybe when I grow up, I'll stop seeing it, but maybe one day I'll understand what I saw and stop thinking about it. I wonder if I would be a different person if I had been more scared to look at it all, if my curiosity had been weaker, would I regret not having seen it. Did you, human, also peek where you weren't allowed, sneak quietly to someone else's door? Did you change, or did the you who didn't see it go somewhere else, living peacefully without troubling thoughts and analysis?
AURIT : Gray, light gray, dark gray... If all this bothers me, only I know it, you'll see that one day I'll go crazy and they'll lock me up in a hospital, I'll calm down, it will be colorful and soft. They'll take my phone, and someone else will talk and decide with it, green, red, maybe blue, I don't know which suits you, unfortunately, like me, you're still not colorful. I'm here, and I have to endure all this, maneuver, hide from the sun, dress warmly in winter, I would change it, but I don't have an appointment. Those in my head told me I don't have to rush, that I don't have to decide now, that I can whenever I feel in my heart that the time has come, it makes me sick, which means never! Relief mixed with anger, because today I don't have to decide, but I could, it always ends like this, tomorrow, tomorrow, I stopped counting the days. Generally, I don't complain, I've gotten used to it, that's how I am, I tell myself, it's my problem that I can't decide, maybe I like being uncomfortable, being uneasy. Or maybe it's time to show everyone the middle finger. It's been too long, I think about it, I walk and go to make a hole. Today I'll do it... Now I nervously reach out my hand, touch the decision with my finger, hold my breath, and see what happens. Color starts seeping through my fingers into my body. I'm not gray anymore. From my fingers, I feel I'm changing, organizing, everything in my body and mind becomes beautiful, I now have my color. I no longer worry about another day passing, no longer worry about not making it in time. Now it's good, I just had to make a decision. Regardless of whether it's wise or foolish, any decision is better than no decision. Everyone has the right to change and improve according to their own judgment. We are born naked and can shape ourselves according to our visions, without succumbing to the gray mass that doesn't always accept color, diversity, and beauty.
TOSI : TOSI, he is touching something, something that is above, high up. I think he touched it with one finger, or at least felt it. When you think of someone, you can visit them, talk to them, see what they're doing. Today is a day like any other, I don't have to visit him because he's always with me when I come back, always there, smiling, busy with his love. When I finally think of someone, I can call them on this phone, ask, they don't answer, doing something, I'll call them later, I always see them smiling at me. I think it's time to go home, everyone there is waiting for me, waiting as always, like back when everyone was there... Today is now, when everything is different, not like then when everyone was... How strongly can you return in memories to someone from times that have passed, how deeply can you experience them to feel the memories with your body, to touch them with a single finger...
MARCED : MARCED looks at his hand in astonishment, he is in great shock because it seems that for the first time he sees a living hand, a hand in which real blood flows. One finger moves, then another, the whole hand. MARCED is scared because he realized it's his hand and he can move it himself, that the hand does what he asks, so it must belong to him. In his "life," MARCED is indestructible, immortal, he has golden armor with beautiful decorations, a magnificent sword, and a powerful rifle with a scope. He can jump high, run fast, shoot from a tank, from a plane. In his "favorite life," MARCED has super-fast cars, many of them. MARCED is not afraid of risk, never gets tired, is not afraid of death, because he will resurrect as many times as he wants. MARCED never felt pain and is not afraid of anything, the only thing MARCED fears now is his own hand. He fears it because it is alive, real, and blood flows in it. He had long forgotten about his body, it had long been unnecessary. His body had been reconstructed, divided into many different lives, starting to split into the real world and his "favorite." He is on the border of real consciousness and shifting into the multidirectionality of fiction. I feel that sometimes we are all surprised that we are alive, that real blood flows in us, that we can direct our lives, and that we are surrounded by others, that we can die, sometimes without a trace. When the boundary between reality and life blurs, when like a drug, you easily reach to artificially become who you want to be, forgetting about your living reality. I would be a hypocrite if I described MARCED without looking at myself, these were my pleasures too, to escape somewhere else, to forget about the seriousness and availability of my life, honestly, I was often bored with reality, also a bit of color here. Longer or shorter moments in another virtual reality... fortunately today I feel quite alive. Real life turned out to be more interesting because now I create fiction within it, not the other way around.
ISET : The main idea of the sculpture: Two faces prepared to engage in mutual dialogue and interaction with others. These two faces signify our flexibility, understanding, and sincere desire to communicate with another person or to find a solution to an existing situation. The faces symbolize wisdom and understanding for challenging tasks, tasks where sometimes one must forget oneself to find understanding and a common language. What happens when we want to be understanding or willing to compromise? We must give something to someone, sometimes to understand it for another's good. We use one face or the other, which evokes in us a feeling of mixed satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The symbol of this feeling is the material between two stone blocks of the base. Between these two differences, when dealing with compromise or understanding, one block of our beliefs or desires meets the block of another person's beliefs. When these plans are realized and the common desire for compromise is achieved, a single base consisting of two plans emerges, and between them, a compromise and understanding, which is the success of dialogue, are achieved. A small but very important accent, because otherwise, these two blocks would not be complete. I dedicate this work to people who can understand the problems of others and do not think only of themselves.