“Le Mond Suspeople de Martynchik”

Originally from Belarus, Martynchik settled in London, after spending some time in Poland. His first exhibition in Paris is a revelation, as he has already found, at the same time his maturity (the height of his powers), his savoir-faire (know-how) and his own domain (Field, Province) which resembles no other. He paints endless canvases, whose every recess is covered with multiple colours, layered geometric shapes, with half – objects and small figures. The whole forms an inextricable tangle, as if our world were irremediably (incurably) destined for the dustbin or for a (traffic) jam from which it was no longer able to extricate (free) itself. The paintings can be viewed from all directions, as there is no longer high or low, north or south, nor beginning, nor boundary. Within this heap, if one looks closely, one can discover geometric elements, boxes, tiny armed warriors, a pitiful Icarus, squares, tubes, taps, an unfinished stucco Madonna, masks, pyramids, rockets, architect’s models, scaffolding: all the means necessary to furnish a carpenter’s workshop. But there are also lizards piping, clock mechanisms.

Generally, when brick – a –brack (odds end ends) is (are) piled up like this, in the work of gesture painters, one has an impression of a gigantic disorder, of suffering on a grand scale. This is not at all the case with Martynchik, who remains master of his overabundance and who paints each detail with absolute precision. Although the anthropomorphic part of his art is minimal – are we not details of a universe which structures itself without us? – one infers from this that man is only one ant in an enormous flood. This realisation brings no fear; there are joy and rhythm in the quivering of this painter, who knows – and is this not rare these days? – the meaning of work, and the requirements of a true oeuvre (opus, work), worthy of the name.

Alain BOSQUET
Academic
French Academy of Fine Arts