OTHERS - an exhibition of artists associated with Art Brut Gallery in Lublin

We cordially invite you to an exhibition of artists associated with Art Brut Gallery in Lublin:
Piotr Drożdżak, Norbert Góźdź, Dominika Mendel, Adam Saran, Jacek Zdanowski

Exhibition Artistic Mentor: Justyna Warecka

Opens: Thursday, 27 September 2018, 5:00 P.M.

Closing: Wednesday, 14 November 2018

ArtBrut Gallery
Studio For Social & Cultural Inclusion

"Should we stop stigmatising the state of disability, then the art – unexpectedly appearing within this state – will bring in freedom as well as personal and social independence to people often excluded from life because of their otherness" – is the motto of the Art Brut Gallery founded in 2013 by the Theatretherapy Foundation in Lublin, also running the Theatre of People with Disabilities. This remarkable community through performances, theatrical shows or exhibitions of outsider art or art brut manifests its presence in the social and cultural life of the city. Artists in their works, frequently emerging from the original and irresistible need for creation, deal with fundamental topics such as the sense of human life, its otherness. They transcend the limitations but at the same time, they see things which others do not notice.

The Art Brut Gallery, located in the Centre of Culture in Lublin, presents mainly the mentally disabled artists, including people with autism and Asperger's Syndrome, as well as other artists remaining outside the official artistic mainstream.

At the exhibition in the ArtBrut Gallery in Wrocław, we offer diversified presentations of artists associated with the Gallery and the Theatre of People with Disabilities run by Maria Pietrusza-Budzyńska.

Artists/performers/participants assume different roles, e.g. they draw stage design for performances in which they subsequently play, but they also record and comment on their everyday life, both accurately and realistically as well as abstractly. Thus, we present: artworks made using a variety of techniques; sketches which later became elements of stage designs; installations commenting the past performances; masks; photographs catching actors in the process of preparing their performances; as well as stills and excerpts from video recordings.

Piotr Drożdżak – draws, paints, creates graphics. An enormously talented self-taught artist. From his early childhood he was fascinated by railways, especially by trains, which he presents in extremely realistic way. However, at the exhibition, we will see the abstract side of his art, the more saturated with details.

Norbert Góźdź – purse maker by education, passionate actor and sculptor. After finishing school, he joined the Theatre of People with Disabilities, where he is an 'actor for special tasks'. At the exhibition, we see some of his extraordinary installations for performances which he can hardly describe, but choreography and every detail of which he can recreate.

Dominika Mendel – graduated from the School of Artistic Studies at the Cracow University of Technology under tutelage of prof. Wiktor Zin. Creation is not just her passion, but also the way of communicating with the world and asking basic and difficult questions through her drawings, sketches, custom paintings, as well as moving, expressive roles in the performances of the Theatre of People with Disabilities. She claims that art cured her autism. At the exhibition we present her drawings and set designs.

Adam Saran – man of many talents, incl. reciting, playing the piano, painting, acting in the Theatre of People with Disabilities, he is a passionate graphic designer creating calendars and a painter depicting animals as well as people in whom he recognizes animal traits. At the exhibition we present his beautiful and colouristically mature drawing.

Jacek Zdanowski – the main features of his own recognizable style are soft, rounded contours laid with wide brush and the harmony of saturated colours and shapes. His large canvases covered with poster technique and dry pastel papers reveal inspiration derived from the nature and book illustrations. His works were shown at numerous exhibitions in Poland and abroad. At our Wroclaw exhibition we can admire two very beautiful pastels.