Andrzej Fogtt, THE RETIREMENT, 1993

135.0 x 135.0cm - oil, steel dust F804, canvas

ANNUNCIATION, FROM THE SERIES "ENERGETIC SPACE", 1993

sign. p.d.: Fogtt | 1993

on the reverse on canvas: Andrzej Fogtt | from the series Energy Space | 135 x 135 cm "WE" | 1993R | oil.



Image exhibited:

- Matter, Energy, Spirit, exhibition catalog, Museum of the Archdiocese of Warsaw, IX 1994.

In 1992, in a series of paintings bearing the common title Energy Space, Andrzej Fogtt conducted a bold formal experiment. The painting material became iron filings mixed with paint, on which the artist acted with a magnet, distributing them on the canvas and incorporating such fragments into classically painted compositions. These explorations stemmed from his fascination with the interaction between matter and the real energy acting on that matter.



♣ A fee will be added to the auctioned price in addition to other costs, based on the right of the creator and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).





Andrzej Fogtt (Poznań 1950, lives in Warsaw) - studied at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Poznań under Prof. Zdzisław Kępiński and Magdalena Abakanowicz. He received his diploma in 1974 and participated in exhibitions since the mid-1970s. In 1984 he won the Grand Prix at the Festival of Polish Contemporary Painting in Szczecin. That year he represented Poland at the XLI Venice Biennale. There he showed a work co-signed with Bożenna Biskupska - the environment "Mystery of Time," composed of his 14 monumental painting compositions and 30 equally powerful sculptures by Biskupska. They were set in a composition with a scenographic character, intended to allude to the sacred on the one hand (but without elements of Christian iconography), on the other - to evoke the mythical and heroic history of battles and sacrifices. The style of Fogtt's paintings at this peak of his career was based on the contrast of centrally located, hieratic silhouettes and the fine, shimmering "scales" of brushstrokes that build them up. A similar style persists in the artist's later works. In a series of works entitled. "Energy Space" he used paint mixed with metal filings, which he subjected to the forces of a magnetic field during the painting process. This resulted in multiple effects, mainly textural. Since 1989, the artist has been working on a project for the Tower of European Unity in Warsaw - a building intended to play as much a symbolic role as to be a cultural center with exhibition halls, concert halls, studios, etc. In 1992 a model of it was created. After 2000, the artist paints bright, colorful, "classical" nudes and scenes in the landscape, with shapes distinguished by color or outline, obscured by a kind of raster of small irregular spots and streaks.

In the series of landscapes, created after 2010 on the painter's canvases, one notices mainly a stretched landscape. Andrew Fogtt, however, goes further - he tries to capture and render the depth of energy, the source of which is nature. The paintings are created in direct contact with nature, Andrzej Fogtt creates on the Brda River in Bory Tucholskie on the Bug River near Janow Podlaski. As he says himself, "I have been experiencing in recent years a fascination with the element of water, it is a mirror reflecting the surrounding nature. I sketch on the river, photographing given fragments of the landscape. This record allows in the studio to preserve the energy experienced directly in the landscape, allows me to keep the power to create many paintings." The series of landscapes was presented at the gallery of the Agra Art Auction House during the exhibition "Water for My Mill."