Piotr Zbierski – Push the Sky Away
The Leica 6 x 7 Gallery in Warsaw is presenting a comprehensive exhibition of works by Piotr Zbierski, winner of the 2012 Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award. The Push the Sky Away project combines three of the young photographer’s series. A book published under the same title will be presented for the first time during the vernissage.
The Leica 6 x 7 Gallery in Warsaw is presenting a comprehensive exhibition of works by Piotr Zbierski, winner of the 2012 Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award. The Push the Sky Away project combines three of the young photographer’s series. A book published under the same title will be presented for the first time during the vernissage.
“I probably chose photography mainly because it is the medium that allows you to be close to people.”
Zbierski’s work is defined by his very personal approach to the medium of photography. His motifs are spontaneous sketches of his life and travel experiences, as well as his meetings with very different kinds of people. The sequence of the motifs often appears to be associative, while the individual pictures give the viewer room to make his or her own associations. The three groups of work were produced over the last nine years and offer a multi-layered glimpse at the photographer’s imagery. Each series represents a period of the author’s artistic development. Alongside the earlier Dream of White Elephants and Love Has to be Reinvented series, the most recent cycle titled Stones Were Lost from the Base makes up the main part of the exhibition at the Leica Galley in Warsaw.
“I think that most of my photographs come from my inner tension and attempt to break down the fear. For me photography is an intimate medium. It helps you express yourself but, ultimately, it allows you to be closer to life and to people, and to look straight into their eyes. The basis of my attitude to photography is a sensual meeting with people.”
The artist sees his work as a journey to the sources of nature, traditions, symbols and cultural codes, and it is unimportant if the individual motifs were taken in his immediate surroundings in Poland, in villages and small settlements in Eastern Europe, or in India. As an anthropologist, Zbierski refers to the roots, to that which was there before the image, and goes in search of the essence and common links between human emotions. He tries to limit the representative aspect of his work, leaving only the permanent and blurring the momentary states of affairs. The repertoire of his imagery ranges from fleeting black and white pictures to magical colour scenarios.
Piotr Zbierski – Push the Sky Away
16.12 - 29.01.2017
Mysia 3, 00-496 Warszawa
