June 25th, 2005 - Marion Kryczka: Recent Paintings

On Saturday, June 25th from 6:00 until 9:00PM, Marion Kryczka, pillar of the Chicago Art Scene and longtime professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, will show a selection of his work. Join us for an evening of art and live music!

For more information call the gallery at 847.864.3799 and be sure to come by to partake in the great atmosphere Gillock shows always have.

Marion Kryczka and the Art of the Living Thing

     The famed 19^th and 20^th century American painter Robert Henri stated in his book The Art Spirit that, “still life in great art is a living thing.” Marion Kryczka is certainly an exemplar of this ideal in painting. He is also, perhaps, singular as a Chicago painter, because his earnest usage of still life defines even his figure-based work.

     Kryczka has taught in the Painting and Drawing Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for nearly 25 years and has shown his work extensively throughout the Midwest in that time. Being one of the few traditionalist painters at the School, Kryczka is a sought out teacher. His reputation as an instructor is legendary, and his effectiveness is shown in the many young painters he has encouraged.

     Kryczka is widely known for his particular brand of deftly constructed still life paintings that take cues from Chardin and share a sense of touch and visual logic with contemporary painters like Scott Noel and Paul Rahilly. From the stuff of his world – freshly caught fish, old photographs, and various small containers, among other items – Kryczka constructs tense tableaus that refer to a number of themes, from the persistence of time and the transience of life to the tension between mankind and nature. The works, with their layering of codes and meanings, very often take on the seriousness of a votive; in the shift between real objects and painted objects the items take on added importance. Always reinforced is the tactile presence of the surfaces Kryczka paints: iridescent fish scales, glass jars, glazed tiles, aging skulls, and supple flesh.

     This work, so full of what some art world pundits might describe as banal or boorish (and passé all the while), is to this reviewer’s eye strikingly more present in its sense of life than what many of our contemporary artists have to offer. That is to say that Kryczka’s invocation of these objects and scenes, which function as the methodology of his contemplation of himself and the world, contain within themselves the residual impact of that intensity of thought. He has gazed here, seen light there, made color and compositional choices, and translated them into paint as the physical manifestation of his investigations. That honesty is the resounding value in these works; it makes us want to delve deeper. There is no pretense here, no necessity for histrionic embellishment; here is life, here is thought, here is an existence, all laid out on canvas with oil paint. The glorious tradition and its 500-year-old technology still retain the power to transform the everyday, individual concerns into timeless and universal considerations. 

     Apart from any attempt to decipher the artist’s intention, there is the undeniable strength in his grasp of the formal issues and application of his medium. The way he creates a volume, the way he captures a certain cast of observed light, the density of the painted surface, and the saturation of color he is able to achieve each add to the overall quality of the work. It is these subtleties of the art of painting that make Kryczka’s paintings exciting, encouraging, and memorable works at which to look.

     Each of the qualities enumerated above apply just as deeply to Kryczka figurative work, because his observational intensity is just as keenly aimed at the living and breathing as it is at the inanimate and stationary. This is part of the integrity of these works – that they reveal the unsentimental nature of the artist’s eye. This is not to say that this painter is cold, rather it is to claim that his own pressure to reveal the inner states that inspire his painting is far greater than any outward limitations or conditions. There is no formulaic mode to which the artist must subscribe, no outside critique, only the voice of experience and the deep need to create.

     What the work of Marion Kryczka offers viewers is a tangible, felt experience and a sure reward for scrutiny. The evocative subjects that inhabit his works flex and breathe with the serendipity of their arrangement and the vigor of painterly touch; they become “living things” under his watchful eye and skillful hand. He brings new meaning to the term “plastic art” as his impeccable painting practice delivers beautiful paintings full of illusion and observational idiosyncrasies that never fail to exist as just what they are: paintings.

 Matthew Ballou, June 2005

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All content copyright 2003 Consuelo Alonzo Gillock

Updated: 11/21/2005