Bartek Materka (b. 1973, Gdansk), "All Clear (Photophobia)," 2026

Biography
Bartek Materka's painterly gaze is directed at the visual adventures of everyday life, but focuses heavily on what deformations the image of reality undergoes in our consciousness. Materka's paintings, generally created on the basis of his own photographs, are an analysis of the visual apparatus, how it is affected by contemporary optical technologies and methods of generating images (digital, television, microscope images, ascii code). Another theme that inspires the artist are image deformations associated with neurological disorders. There is also a constant issue of emotions related to personal life - the protagonists of Materka's paintings are generally characters from his closest environment: wife Joanna, son Titus, friends. Often it is the emotions generated in relations with them that find painterly visualization, under their influence the paintings and images become disturbed, discolored, split and overlapped demanding different perspectives of looking and understanding.