The exhibition marks the celebration of the 120th anniversary of the Stained Glass Workshop and Museum and inaugurates a new, expanded exhibition space. The exhibition covers the work of Piotr Ostrowski from 2011-2022.
There is no state devoid of light; the lack of light would entail non-existence. Pure darkness does not exist as such, by itself. Light is always present, it never wanes; if we experience darkness, it is only because something covers – velare –the light – lucem.
We experience light when it is reflected from items or, if they are transparent, penetrates through them. Looking directly at pure light – it dazzles us. We must block the view somehow – to be able to look at light, we have to provide the eye with a mask. This mask may be glass.
In his works, Ostrowski experiments with combining various sources of light with glass, the main material of his pieces. In these artworks, he combines the modern, structural properties of the material with the oldest – Medieval – techniques of glass dyeing and patination. Thanks to firing the manually applied layers of paint in a temperature close to the melting point of glass, their durability is eternal.
The diversified sources of light – led panels, halogen and soda bulbs, projector filament lamps which, transmitting the animation, also become sources of light, sometimes illuminate an object, and at other times are raised to the rank of a narrative entity of the object, like in the lux et umbra artwork. However, light is always a pretext.
