...Page is loading...

Lost password?
Need an account? Sign up!
It's free of costs.

Sign up as artist Sign up as guest Sign up as dealer
Back to login
Back to login

Marcin Cienski Main Profile Image

Marcin Cienski

Minneapolis, USA

Painting • Born in Krakow, Poland • Studied at Krakow, Poland

Published  09/08/2017   |   Updated  10/08/2019

The intangible

Marcin Cienski summons the intangible. Using old photographs, pictures from
magazines, personal artifacts and memories as source material, the Polish-born, Berlin-
based artist creates lush, exquisitely rendered oil paintings that tap into our collective
unconscious. His moody, sometimes sinister work fuses the ordinary with the unsettling.
While the objects and scenes he portrays seem familiar, his paintings are...

Read more

Marcin Cienski summons the intangible. Using old photographs, pictures from
magazines, personal artifacts and memories as source material, the Polish-born, Berlin-
based artist creates lush, exquisitely rendered oil paintings that tap into our collective
unconscious. His moody, sometimes sinister work fuses the ordinary with the unsettling.
While the objects and scenes he portrays seem familiar, his paintings are nonetheless
puzzling. Akin to film stills, they offer the potential for narrative but ultimately remain
unresolved. This is because Cienski does not want the viewer to be pinned down by
literal interpretations. Rather, he encourages us to draw from our own experiences and
interior states – his is an art of possibility.

But we do not descend into these visions completely, for their technical execution is also
significant. The jewel-like colours and lush shadows convey the marks of the maker
– brush strokes are always evident. Their presence reminds us that we are involved in
painterly acts of representation and interpretation. Cienski says; ‘I do not want paintings
to imitate photography. I am keen on remaining true to the medium of oil paint that
enables a creation of an independent, parallel reality on canvas with painterly means’.

The painter maintains that his art must not be solely intellectual. As such, Cienski’s
desire to tap into a ‘sacred source’ (religious or otherwise) is important. Raised a
Catholic, his examination of the spiritual is all encompassing – previous series involve
ancient church interiors alongside kitschy weeping Madonnas. But Cienski never passes
judgment. Rather than suggest that one type of devotion is more significant than another,
his work’s overarching sense of ambiguity instead encourages quiet contemplation.

This extends to his examinations of the living. The figures he paints are often self
contained and lost in thought. On occasion their interiority manifests itself in physical
afflictions. Sometimes characters appear grasped by illness, and these ideas of
entrapment or an invisible threat are central to the artist’s practice.

Cienski’s motivations are not easily articulated. He describes his works as conduits
for messages larger than himself and maintains that ‘great art cannot be reasoned out.
It comes from a source that cannot be described with smart words and theories’. For
Cienski, ‘a painting shouldn’t mean but be’. Accordingly, as viewers, we must fight our
desire to understand and succumb to his seductive visions of the inscrutable.

Serena Bentley

Marcin Cienski
by the stove | Oil on canvas 23.62 x 31.5 inches / 60 x 80 centimeters

by the stove | Oil on canvas 23.62 x 31.5 inches / 60 x 80 centimeters

red dress | Oil on canvas 47.24 x 63 inches / 120 x 160 centimeters

red dress | Oil on canvas 47.24 x 63 inches / 120 x 160 centimeters

Ox | Oil on canvas 11x14 inches / 28x36 centimeters

Ox | Oil on canvas 11x14 inches / 28x36 centimeters

reconciliation | Oil on canvas 19.7 x 27.5 inches / 50 x 70 centimeters

reconciliation | Oil on canvas 19.7 x 27.5 inches / 50 x 70 centimeters

nightwatch | Oil on canvas 63 x78.7 inches / 160 x 200 centimeters

nightwatch | Oil on canvas 63 x78.7 inches / 160 x 200 centimeters


EXHIBITIONS

SOLO

2019

"Victory Memorial" Jochen Hempel Gallery, Leipzig, Germany

2016

" I Am Not Going to Please You ", envoy enterprises, New York, US

" Hounted Barn", Jochen Hempel Gallery, Leipzig, Germany

show all

GROUP

2018

"“Black/Noir” group show at Gallery Youn, Montreal, Canada

2017

Part III: Interiority | Curated by Zavier Ellis, Charlie Smith London

2015

"I am a Lie and I am Gold" Group Exhibition at Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, US

show all

WORKS IN COLLECTIONS

AmC Collezione Coppola Vicenza, Italy

Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation, USA

Hauser&Wirth Zürich, Switzerland

show all

GALLERIES

Galerie Jochen Hempel | http://jochenhempel.com/

envoy enterprises | http://envoyenterprises.com/

Alb | http://galeriealb.com/

EDUCATION (detailed)

2000 Graduation - Fine Arts Academy, Krakow, Poland

Other artists...

more artists...