Krzysztof Marchlak‘s creative work is a phenomenon that appears intriguing against the backdrop of young Polish photography. The richness and diversity of the worlds he creates and their grandeur demonstrate the artist’s remarkable skills and intellectual background. Krzysztof’s road to the medium of photography led through painting. Through the camera, the painter’s eye presents a magical world hidden behind the figures he portrays. Marchlak pursues his career as a painter, photographer, organiser of cultural events and Doctor of Arts.
Surely this uniqueness and exceptional nature of the phenomenon of Marchlak’s creative work was noted by the jury of a photographic competition called “Exhibit yourself at CoCA”, organised by the Education Department of the institution. As the winner of the CoCA Director’s Award, the artist had an opportunity to introduce himself to a wider audience through a post-competition exhibition. It is worth mentioning that this exhibition constitutes the first review of existing photograph series and demonstrates the artist’s capabilities, announcing the author’s artistically rich future. The curator of the exhibition, entitled “Beautiful Escapes. Krzysztof Marchlak” was Agnieszka Natalia Gołębiewska who runs the “Nocny Art Patrol” gallery with Mariusz Horanin and cooperates with the artist on a permanent basis.
It is worth keeping track of the direction in which the artist’s creative work will develop because this exhibition in Toruń surely seems to be a prelude to something great.
Celebrating image
Most of all, the artist celebrates the image of the figures he photographs. The protagonists of his photos often include people he has just met and who have somehow reached him, for example through social media. It is worth mentioning that they are not professional models, but display certain courage to pose and the ability to intrigue viewers. Marchlak is undoubtedly interested in people representing art and theatre, such as actors and dancers. People from the LGBTQ+ circles also appear in his photographs, courageously looking at the lens, ready to shed their own “armour”. In fact, the themes of gender and LGBTQ+ are the focus of his works, and the artist himself is a member of the community, but as a photographer, he assumes the role of their observer.
The images he creates are a testimony to an exceptional face-to-face meeting with extraordinary figures who have an opportunity to suggest to the artist how they would like to be portrayed. That is why the photographs are an account of a friendly, empathic meeting of individuals, as a result of which the depth of a portrayed figure being brought to the surface. Thanks to the photographer’s skills, the image of the person being portrayed is transformed into an image characterised by timeless features. According to the artist, viewers who come into contact with a given photograph have the opportunity to notice the model’s aura through the creation of the sense of closeness and understanding. The character of the portrayed model is brought out with the use of appropriate tools, for example light, building the atmosphere which is vital to Marchlak.
The colours of tamed avant-garde
When the boundaries between advertising photography and art began to blur, it was considered a controversial and avant-garde approach. Today, a considerably stylised photo, where the aesthetics of the image itself is more important than the product being advertised, is not shocking to anyone. Advertising photographs by Guy Bourdin taken in 1967 for Charles Jourdan, shoe manufacturer, encouraged artists to start experimenting to create atmosphere on a photograph by building it through the set design and theatre-style illumination.
The history of photography has accustomed the audience to aestheticized shots. The bold shots taken by Krzysztof Marchlak, who experiments with his models to show their depth, are not shocking but intriguing.
Creating his beautiful worlds, Marchlak draws both from high culture and popular culture. Being interested in the notion of unreachable beauty, he observes the world of fashion and celebrities, whose participants strive towards their dream ideal of beauty and shape its canon. The glamour aesthetics, the splendour and the lavishness – all these elements can be found in the photographer’s works. The artist intentionally draws from popular culture, also observing the culture of LGBTQ+ circles. However, he remains faithful to modern art, in particular portrait paintings and sacred art. He is also familiar with the lavishness and decorativeness characteristic for Baroque Art. Surreal plays can also be found in his creative work.
In his photographs, it is possible to notice inspiration with the works of Pierre et Gilles, a creative duo that authored works being an account of exceptional meeting of photography and painting. Their hybrid works of art are deeply rooted in pop culture but they are also marked with references to religion, ethics, eroticism, burlesque or mythology. Their creative process is very precise and meticulous. The artists change our idea of portrait, departing from realism, and challenge contemporary aesthetics. Charm and sensuality are vital to them, just like in Marchlak’s creative work.
The surreal style, bold colours, and strong contrasts, visible in the art of the Kraków-based artist, are also the hallmark of David LaChapelle, who continues to inspire numerous artists. Expressiveness and emotions brought to the surface with the support of intentionally selected tools are a priority to the American.
The exhibition in Toruń mentioned above is an account of Marchlak’s photographic achievements to date. To gain a deeper insight into his way of thinking about photography and the topics that he is interested in, it is worth taking a close look at his earlier works (some of them were not showcased at the event in Toruń) and exhibitions.
Model of masculinity
There is no doubt that the artist focuses on the search related to physicality, and individual and collective identity. The body dominates his works and is often given prominence in his photographs, but the element of privacy is retained. There is no body shape that would not seem fascinating to Marchlak, so he meticulously tries to present its beauty through light and contrast.
The series of photographs entitled “I Would Give You My Heart” (2019), exhibited at the Off Frame Gallery in Kraków, is a perfect example of the artist’s creative search. Placing men in the centre of the project, Marchlak portrays them in a way that highlights their gentleness. The images he created, full of finesse, bring to mind modern era portraits, for example the portraits depicting Saint Sebastian which were a pretext to show a perfect male nude. Sensuality and eroticism are present in Marchlak’s portraits, but they were not the main focus of the project. The artist explored the topic of the model of masculinity and the functioning of men in contemporary society. He intentionally departed from the role imposed on men by culture and society. The element which joins all the portraits is the passport held by the protagonists, which refers to the unlimited possibility to travel and the myth of finding your place on earth. The inspiration for the aesthetics and the subject-matter of the project was not only modern-era painting but also popular culture, in this case specifically pop music and the piece “Go West” by Village People. The cover of the song performed by Pet Shop Boys refers to the mecca for gays, San Francisco. In contrast, the melody line was used in Polish culture in a completely different context. “Polska, Biało-Czerwoni” is the new verse of a refrain sung by football supporters, clearly defining the image of men in Polish culture. This raises questions why that melody line was used in this particular way.
The “I Would Give You My Heart” project was presented in the first issue of “BOYS! BOYS! BOYS!” magazine, functioning as an art platform established by „The Little Black Gallery” in London, promoting gay and queer photography. The magazine is aimed at introducing this form of expression in the context of art/photography history, because it is still not being showcased at a large scale.
Glitter – when imaginary world becomes true.
In 2021, at the Shefter gallery in Kraków, the artist presented “Glitter”, a series of photos with the lyrics of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” serving as an introduction. It was yet another step towards discovering the protagonists’ identity. The affirmation of a beautiful body is concealing the struggle fought with oneself. Glitter became a metaphor of travelling a certain road to self-discovery. It gained the property of the magical item which facilitated the demonstration of one’s true identity. The exhibition serves as a prelude to the Toruń exhibition, and to build beautiful worlds of escape, the worlds of dreams. The protagonists of portraits, drag queens, actors and artists from the Nowy Proxima Theatre in Kraków, are looking boldly at the camera, leading us to the “Beautiful Escapes” exhibition in Toruń.
Perfect revelation – in search of beauty
The “Beautiful Escapes” exhibition at CoCA in Toruń, rich in the diversity of the author’s creative thought, summarises several years of Krzysztof Marchlak’s photographic activities. Using the exhibition, the artist took the visitors on an adventure which may be perceived as a dreamy journey to mysterious unreal places. The curator compares this artistic adventure to a trip to Kythira, a Greek island said to be the birthplace of Aphrodite. The place and its idyllic atmosphere, known in popular culture thanks to the paintings by Anotoine Watteau, direct the viewers’ attention to the issue of beauty. Visitors to CoCA in Toruń enter the world of an idyllic land of pleasure, to which beauty is the key, although it is not straightforward beauty. Colourful figures have become guides to the worlds created by the artist, including mainly the representatives of the art world who, showcased in the “magical light”, bring their nobility from within to the surface.
Different from everyone else – the escape to an unreal world
At the very entrance to the mysterious world, the viewers encounter the bold looks of the protagonists, depicted on scaled-up photographs which at a first glance may invoke the impression of paintings, which also refers to another aspect of the artist’s activities (painting). Men full of grace, presented in unusual outfits, with attributes, talismans, thanks to the intensity of their glance, provide a promise of deep sensations which Marchlak offers. The protagonists seem to be lingering between the human world and the divine world, they are exquisitely majestic and full of grace. The dominating portrait of a man in a wedding kimono invites us to enter the world of people that have been excluded from society or cannot find a convenient place for themselves there due to the standards imposed on them, e.g., binary nature of gender, eccentricity of artists.
In addition to portraits, there is also a chance to admire still lives, whose micro-scale physical mock-ups were prepared by Marchlak himself. The images being the outcomes of the artist’s ideas, materialised and presented after being considerably enlarged (“Paradiso” series), convey the atmosphere of a dream. Mysterious paradise spots full of luxuriant plants are on the one hand beautiful, and may invoke anxiety on the other. Especially when they are showcased alongside
to the portraits. The juxtaposition of still lifes with the photographs showing the dancers and actors from the Nowy Proxima Theatre in Kraków evokes emotional stir. Tensions, even violence, can be sensed between the images. People become aesthetic landscapes, built with the use of light and colour. The dancers’ photographs, presented in a large-scale format, resemble Baroque compositions.
The portrait of a painter, Beata Stankiewicz, is also captivating. The author had a good idea to show the artist’s image considerably enlarged, as this is an automatic reference to the medium of painting. Moreover, this enhanced the sense of unreal, added strangeness to the figure and gave the photo a surreal touch.
The combinations of individual photographs demonstrate the artist’s skills. Most of all, it is possible to notice how skilled the artist is in using colour and light which purpose is to depict the inner life of the people being portrayed, and to build the composition of the image. What is more, the images are connected through the shapes and textures of objects in the photographs. All Marchlak’s capabilities are brought together in the portrait of a man, entitled “the Butterfly” (chosen as the work promoting the exhibition), very distinct from the portrait of the man in a kimono. Courage is also present in his glance, but it is completely different, dominated by the filter of gentleness. The photo very dramatic and decorative, yet it does not dominate the soul of the protagonist, presented through his look. This is the essence of Krzysztof Marchlak’s creative work, for whom the meeting with other people is the most important.
