art + objets d'arts + photography

Marcin Cienski summons the intangible. Using old photographs, pictures from magazines, personal artifacts and memories as source material, the Polish-born, USA – based artist creates lush, exquisitely rendered oil paintings that tap into our collective unconscious. His moody, sometimes sinister work fuses the ordinary with the unsettling.

While the objects and scenes he portrays seem familiar, his paintings are nonetheless puzzling. Akin to film stills, they offer the potential for narrative but ultimately remain unresolved. This is because Cienski does not want the viewer to be pinned down by literal interpretations. Rather, he encourages us to draw from our own experiences and interior states – his is an art of possibility.

But we do not descend into these visions completely, for their technical execution is also significant. The jewel-like colours and lush shadows convey the marks of the maker – brush strokes are always evident. Their presence reminds us that we are involved in painterly acts of representation and interpretation. Cienski says; ‘I do not want paintings to imitate photography. I am keen on remaining true to the medium of oil paint that enables a creation of an independent, parallel reality on canvas with painterly means’.

The painter maintains that his art must not be solely intellectual. As such, Cienski’s desire to tap into a ‘sacred source’ (religious or otherwise) is important. Raised a Catholic, his examination of the spiritual is all encompassing – previous series involve ancient church interiors alongside kitschy weeping Madonnas. But Cienski never passes judgment. Rather than suggest that one type of devotion is more significant than another, his work’s overarching sense of ambiguity instead encourages quiet contemplation.

This extends to his examinations of the living. The figures he paints are often self contained and lost in thought. On occasion their interiority manifests itself in physical afflictions. Sometimes characters appear grasped by illness, and these ideas of entrapment or an invisible threat are central to the artist’s practice.

Cienski’s motivations are not easily articulated. He describes his works as conduits for messages larger than himself and maintains that ‘great art cannot be reasoned out. It comes from a source that cannot be described with smart words and theories’. For Cienski, ‘a painting shouldn’t mean but be’. Accordingly, as viewers, we must fight our desire to understand and succumb to his seductive visions of the inscrutable.

Serena Bentley

/Serena Bentley is a curator and art writer from Aotearoa based in Melbourne.
She is currently Curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI)./

See More:

www.marcincienski.com

PRESS:

Known in the international art world for his darkly romantic, humorous and provocative paintings, Marcin Cienski introduces the viewer to his personal demons and fears in his solo exhibition ‘I am Not Going to Please You’.

Currently, society as a whole is dealing with demons. An acute awareness of traditional cultural values clashing with contemporary values is leading to a number of conflicts. The political climate of the 30’s is being revisited with the vulgarity of a reality show posing as entertainment. Manners of conduct, long considered the norm for decency and a civilized society, are being thrown out of the window by those meant to set an example. Traditional culture is collapsing and politicians, for their personal gain, play on humankind’s inherent fear of the unknown, by encouraging divisiveness, hatred and resentment towards people who think and act differently. Cienski states:” Fear often is our main motivation and life coach. It can push us to oppress individuals and destroy nations. Stigma of being different can turn a person into a demon in the eyes of an oppressor. Demons are also real, spiritual entities that can hunt us. Posses us. These days demons left their infernal home and now run in packs being more active, hungrier, and madder than ever.”

At a distance, the artist’s paintings look almost photographic in detail. Close-up, they illustrate a bold and dynamic brushwork resulting in a more ‘painterly’ look. Take a few steps away from the paintings and something happens. Through a great sense of depth and intrigue, Cienski introduces us to a universe marked by alienation, absurdity and irony. His strange cast of figures, engaged in mysterious actions, can be interpreted in many ways. Coal Mask (2016), for example, can be seen as an ironic, critical examination of the decline of the coal industry, leaving a dumbstruck worker with nothing but dirt on his face. Or it can be seen as a metaphor for the masks men take on in front of others. The narrative of Late Guest (2016) is riddled with double-takes. It is an alarming work, which appears to hint at a fiery apocalypse. A man, covered with a mask and a hood, seems to be posing for his portrait right upon entering the dark room of a house. One can but derive that the late guest is not exactly an invited much less a wanted guest. The icy silence and Gothic aspect of the painting is interlaced with today’s reality, even though the scene could be dating back a hundred years ago. Innocently called Take it off (2016), a man in a sinister and extremely deliberate stance, his face covered by a horse head, raises his right arm as if pointing to some imminent doom. Lance (2016), a bearded man in a skull mask, is portrayed using the “be aware that you are about to die ‘ motif from the Baroque period. By darkening the shadows and transfixing Lance in a blinding shaft of light, the work is reminiscent of Caravaggio’s tenebrism. And then there are the frightening paintings of actual demons. Regardless of the actual subjects, Cienski’s paintings are exquisitely made in the old master tradition. They are beautiful with a cruel edge. They exude absolute mystery. Through the enigmatic rituals in which fiction and reality mingle, the bizarre alienation and ominous tension, the viewer becomes a lonely wanderer in the artist’s landscapes of desolation, but also a receptacle of all the suffering and misery of the world.

Marcin Cienski (Poland, 1976) is a painter living and working in Pennsylvania. He graduated from the Fine Arts Academy in Krakow, Poland. The artist has exhibited in institutions such as the Kunstverein Tiergarten in Berlin, Germany; Museum Abtei in Liesborn, Germany and Kunsthalle Rostock in Rostock Germany as well as in commercial galleries in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

Marcin Cienski
30.03.1976

Lives and works in Minneapolis, USA

2001
Graduation – Fine Arts Academy, Krakow, Poland

Solo shows:

2019

” Victory Memorial”
Jochen Hempel Gallery, Leipzig, Germany

2016

” I Am Not Going to Please You “
envoy enterprises, New York, US

2016

” Haunted Barn”
Jochen Hempel Gallery, Leipzig, Germany

2014

“Blissful Summit Days”
envoy enterprises, New York, US

2012
“Late Guests”
Marc Straus Gallery, New York, US

2012
“Spaete Gaeste”
Jochen Hempel Gallery, Leipzig, Germany

2011
“Chronic Insomnia”
Marianne Friis Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark

2010
“Pensjonat”
Galerie Römerapotheke, Zürich, Switzerland

2009
“Bad Air”
Geukens&DeVil, Antwerp, Belgium

2008
“Testing”
FRED [London] Ltd, London, England

2007
“Paintings 2006 2007”
Binz & Krämer, Cologne, Germany

2005
“Malerei”
Binz & Krämer, Cologne, Germany

2003
“Teraz mieszkam na wsi”
Nova GalleryKrakow, Poland

Selected group shows and awards:

2021
“The shadow of the Cross” 

Kusseneers Gallery, Brussels, Belgium

2018
“Black/Noir”
Gallery Youn, Montreal, Canada

2015 
“I am a Lie and I am Gold”

Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, US

2015

“Nocturne”

curated museum show at Kunsthalle der Sparkasse Leipzig

2015
“Die Zimmer der Nomaden (The rooms of the nomads)”

curated museum show at the  Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany

2013
“Twilight Zone”

Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany

2013
„Tierstücke“

SØR Rusche Collection, Museum Abtei Liesborn, Germany

2012
“Strange Light”

Erika Deak Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
 
2009
“Ein Bild ist ein Bild”

Galerie Alexander Ochs, Berlin, Germany

2009
“Bad Moon Rising 4”

Galerie Sans Titre, Brussels /curator Jan Van Woensel/, Belgium

2008
Nomination for  the Sovereign European Art Prize

nominator – Rebecca Wilson /the Saatchi Gallery Director/

2007
“Salon Nouveau”

Engholm Engelhorn Galerie, Vienna, Austria

“Brave New World”

Galerie Binz & Krämer, Köln, Germany

2006
Finalist – Saatchi Gallery and Guardian competition
/nomination by Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, co-director of the Gagosian gallery/ , England

2006
“Kämpfen und Lieben”

Rostocker Satelliten, Kunsthalle Rostock, Germany

2005
“Eurostars”

Galleri S.E, Bergen, Norway

2004
Paperworks – Works on paper

Binz & Krämer, Köln, Germany

Collections:

Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation, USA

Campbell Collection Los Angeles, USA

Hauser&Wirth Zürich, Switzerland

SOR Rusche Oelde, Germany
AmC Collezione Coppola Vicenza, Italy

Residencies:

2013 
The Eileen Kaminsky Family Foundation grant and residency, Jersey City, NJ

2010-2011
Can Xalant residency, Mataro, Spain