born 1975 in Wrocław
In 2000, Brzeski graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. He is an author of sculptures, installations, videos and drawings, some of which take on spatial forms.
The reoccurring themes in the artist’s works are perception, the borderline of art theory and psychoanalysis; he also refers to the traditions of sculpture while creatively reinterpreting it. He is interested in both the material dimension of the work (mass, texture, weight) and its pure potential. Brzeski often refers to the human figure, emphasizing its emotional expression. He does not shy away from the aesthetics of ugliness and plays freely with scale and form – his pieces are full of surreal, disturbing and unusual visions. The artist attaches great importance to the materials for his sculptures and uses them in a specific way: for example, the steel rods are shaped like vines.
Olaf Brzeski, Copier, 2017, video, 8’00
The work depicts the process of creating a portrait of my 17-year-old son Konstanty. The portrait is drawn from memory and it becomes subject to simplifications and standardisations. It is created by a copy machine that I sometimes feel like – as something that will be pulped anyway if our life is reduced to the simple idea of passing one’s genotype further on. My attempt at synchronically drawing with my left and right hand refers to managing our sense and motoric functions by cerebral hemispheres. I actually begin the drawing from the spinal cord and brain. All vibrations and imperfections in such creative process determine the individuality of the resulting work.
It is simply a portrait of a male child, who will perhaps have a male child himself, who will perhaps have a male child himself, and so on” [by Olaf Brzeski].
