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ARTIST STATEMENT:
Having graduated form the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts
(Poland) with an MA in Graphic Arts, Tadeusz Biernot
devoted the ensuing decade to teaching and academic
pursuits. Since 1989, he has lived and worked both
in Italy and Canada.
While the focus of his professional career has been
until recently directed at graphic design, painting
has always remained at the core of his intellectual
and emotional expression – and now, has become a
full-time activity.
The
character of his work can be best described paraphrasing
Cicero who states that man not so much creates as
discovers and rediscovers. Biernot’s paintings reflect the
topography of his memory, its consciousness and
sub-consciousness. It is the constant pursuit of the
points of reference encoded in his memory that gives the
spark and anticipation to his creative endeavors. Like
an archeologist who from bits and pieces brings back to
life a visual notion of the past rather than its
reconstruction, Biernot sifts through his own experiences
and emotions, factual and well as imagined, and enlivens
them as visual forms both abstract and non-abstract using
a variety of media – pastels, acrylics, oils on canvas,
paper and wood.
His
most recent exhibit is titled somewhat obliquely OPLONTIS
– this little known part of Naples was once home to
Poppaea, Emperor Nero’s second wife. The remnants of her
villa, rarely visited by tourists, project a unique
atmosphere – one has a feeling of intruding on the
intimacy of the home whose owners are momentarily away.
The same benevolent feeing of intrusion is reflected in
the exhibited works depicting the never-ending struggle of
revealing and concealing thoughts, emotions, urgings via a
human face. The messy and complicated images are Biernot’s
way of explaining what nurtures his own imagination and
permeates his oeuvre – obviousness and ambiguity, the
essence of art.
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