hi Neil
thank you for the studio visit.
avoiding clichés is nigh on impossible – I will try to avoid making hackneyed statements, um, but, isn't the figurative/abstract aspect of the work a bit of a cliché around painting? you don't want to mention it? (oh dear) but find yourself doing so. you might well be a serial evader of painting rules: not only avoiding techniques that are well–suited to that activity, but also established principles of composition, pictorial layout and colours. not quite my definition of anarchy, as there are clearly plenty of rules, just that you have formalised them for yourself, adopting them and then adapting them from industrial and practical processes, where once full of purpose, they now appear to offer none.
art is a place where rules are manifestly ridiculous and the breaking of them is applauded.
well done
however we do need systems of working (was 'Working' not the title of your last solo show here?) to create self–imposed limitations when making work. despite your natural disdain for rules, one cannot help but notice that your work falls into certain recognisable patterns or genres. the works somehow suggest portraits and landscapes. maddening, no? they are so almost by coincidence or like a returning home; a nod to the past.
so, to return to the beginning, let us talk no further, let the work do its silently slippery thing, which had started to come alive during the studio visit when our backs were turned. very much looking forward to hanging them all and opening your exhibition 'Come Alive' on the 25th of February.
bests domo
Domo Baal is delighted to present 'Come Alive', Neil Zakiewicz's second solo exhibition in the gallery following 'Working' in 2018. Most recently he exhibited in 'Skewed Logic' at Coleman Projects in London together with Laura White and Dominic Beattie in 2021 (publication available, designed by Matthew Appleton at Modern Activity).
