Mariusz Sołtysik
Land scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW culture goods such as music, or books. I was growing up in such aesthetics. Points of transformation, which shaped me in the context of changing reality played a decisive role in my future creative path and they also influenced changes in medium used in my works. No artist ever creates in a void, his works always reflect changing times.
After my studies in Łodz, the first important point was studying at L’ ESAPV in Mons in Belgium. The new tool was screenprinting, there were elements of photography involved in the process of that medium. It was a way of leaving the aesthetics of greyness for the benefit of colour. The next point was a decision to enter space and to create ephemeral works with the use of light, water, and materials changing under the influence of temperature( for example wax). Next, there were video projects, installations and site-specific works. I have never resigned from, for example, drawing. The freedom of expression does not mean, in my opinion, a prison, which I see in focusing on one medium only. The tools to expose your own thoughts / meanings do tend to increase, change with time and context. I wonder if contemporary teenagers think about a phone, or an HD tablet in a different way to how people used to think about a pencil, or crayon in 20th century. It also seems to me that the features of intermedia works, which were formulated by Dick Higgins, are now widely available to all viewers. Now that, I mentioned Higgins, I found an important inspiration in Fluxus group. I still feel that the group is a great inspiration for me. I am one of the lucky ones, who belonged to the International Association of Artists in 1990s, it was led by two artists Emmett Williams and Ryszard Waśko. Thanks to that, I could participate in performances of Fluxus artists, for example Fluxus Dinnes in 1998 and in 2010 in Lodz, or in Construction in Process in Israel in 1995, or in Melbourne in Australia in 1998. The Museum of Artists set up by Ryszard Waśko and Wschodnia Gallery( started in 1983 by Adam Klimczak and Jerzy Grzegorski) represent the first independent galleries showing then‘ other’ art. They had a colossal influence on my development and later projects. Joint exhibitions during Construction in Process placed a firm emphasis on the process of art creation and on an exchange of thoughts amongst artists. Those actions represented the opposite to the commercial approach to art, where artwork is a form of product. All those mentioned above represented an important inspiration and motivation for me. An opportunity to exhibit works together with such artists as Dennis Oppenheim, Alison Knowles, Jessica Higgins, Charlie Citron, Sean O ' Reilly, Anna Macleod, Paul Panhuysen, Josh Selman, Erica Kneer, Suzy Sureck, Laszlo Kerekes czy Józef Robakowski gave me the drive to create a common platform for art creation. This is how the series of exhibitions came to be for example Marcowe Gody( as part of Museum of Artists), or later CamouFlash 2007 / 2008. Those were my ideas and they allowed me to widen the‘ field of view’. I was able to confront my own actions with