Piotr Perski


Artist and professor based out of Barcelona.

Copyright © all works by Piotr Perski 1995




Projects




Urban Work 





Nicosia


The old techniques of painting have a lot to do with pure expression and personal way of seeing the reality. Painting can communicate the ideas well and build a new artificial structure or a proposal for the future. We can understand art as the act of significance, the act of manifestation of imagination which can create possible worlds.

My idea is to bring together in the artistic way the whole horizon of Nicosia this ancient capital city of Cyprus still divided into two parts. I have decided to work directly, painting the landscape-horizon from the highest building of the city to get the entire view of 360º. My proposal is to paint long horizon of the Turkish part of the city as well of the Greek one. So in the end we can have an opportunity to see whole city together, the global view, (180º+ 180º=360º). Even if is it just an imaginative artistic invention.

 

Installation in the process




Nicosia 360º Project / 2011/ installation 20cm x10m / oil on wood 


Installation



Melbourne

The impressions through frottages (rubbings) in role of the relief from certain deposits on surfaces of the soil of Melbourne. In this case, the artist rescues fragments of significant images of the city, which are located on the ground and are stepped on, places of transit, again, by thousands of people at all times, that have returned a look that can provide us with amazing references. This work also references earlier in the work of Piotr Perski, with his project about the inscriptions on the slabs of the floor of the cloister of the Cathedral (stones, 2000-2012) collecting frottages (rubbings) of reproductions of funerary inscriptions located the floor of the cloister of the Cathedral of Barcelona and at the same time he researches on the significance that they had originally. They are works of ephemeral nature but with a great poetic and evocative power.


The Streets of Melbourne / 2017 / frottage with wax pastel on paper


Melbourne frottages in progress



San Francisco

Empremtes
Geras Tousignant Gallery
May 20th – July 3rd 2014

The project has grown from the idea of illustrating POEMARIO by Rafael Ruiz Fernández-Villalon. The author of the illustrations, who has been living and working in Barcelona for the last 15 years. When reading the poems, he found in them fascinating descriptions of trivial experiences of someone, who spent his whole life writing about them. As Piotr Perski says: "The project has been unfolding and has now overstepped the pages of the anthology. The traces (impressions) have multiplied, creating constellations of planets in rectangular and square shapes of large dimension, always accompanied by drawings of people, animals, trees, balloons or ships."

While visiting San Francisco the artist has gained new experiences of a traveller and decided to reflect them in a new series of prints. In this recent work one can see his observations regarding nature, life and universal human interrelations, now in their American shape.

In the context of the presented work, the fingerprints become little worlds where things happen, where people settle and live. Impressions have acquired another symbolic meaning that is no longer the unique, unrepeatable touch of the fingers. It has become a space for recreating other worlds, other lands, experiences and sentiments that form our life.


Empremtes 1 / 22,5” x 30” / ink on paper - archival acid free permanent waterproof ink


Details from one of the ten works


Empremtes 2 / 22,5” x 30” / ink on paper - archival acid free permanent waterproof ink


Details from one of the ten works


Empremtes 3 / 22,5” x 30” / ink on paper - archival acid free permanent waterproof ink


Details from one of the ten works


Empremtes 4 / 22,5” x 30” / ink on paper - archival acid free permanent waterproof ink


Details from one of the ten works


Empremtes 5 / 22,5” x 30” / ink on paper - archival acid free permanent waterproof ink


Details from one of the ten works


Empremtes 6 / 22,5” x 30” / ink on paper - archival acid free permanent waterproof ink


Details from one of the ten works


Empremtes 7 / 22,5” x 30” / ink on paper - archival acid free permanent waterproof ink


Details from one of the ten works


Empremtes 8 / 22,5” x 30” / ink on paper - archival acid free permanent waterproof ink


Details from one of the ten works


Empremtes 9 / 22,5” x 30” / ink on paper - archival acid free permanent waterproof ink


Details from one of the ten works


Empremtes 10 / 22,5” x 30” / ink on paper - archival acid free permanent waterproof ink



Barcelona

Stones
In ‘Stones,’ Perski explores other means of creative expression. As he draws in large formats on fragile paper with ephemeral materials doomed to be lost forever, he exercises a daring task in both conception and realization. Perski leaves us with the message: ‘any solid matter fades away in the air,’ just like words fade away but artistic creation always leaves a mark.The interests of the artist’s themes can also be found in what critics like to call conceptual projects, although here he maintains the same poetic line. He has planned several artistic performances in which he experiments with different ideas and media.

In this category, belongs his project documenting the inscriptions on the stone slabs of the cloister in the Barcelona Cathedral. In the first phase of the project, Perski intends to reproduce the inscriptions on the stone floor of the cloister through a technique of direct prints (frottages) to investigate their original meaning.

Perski states, “(…) stones interest me from the aesthetical point of view, …their sophisticated compositions and historical importance. The project I am presenting here closes another stage of my work… I am trying to restore some of the memory of the stones in the cloister in the Cathedral. I watch with despair as many stone plaques on the floor are being covered with cement, are lost for ever, only to make it easier for the tourists to visit the grounds of the Cathedral. Is it impossible to recover at least part of the memory of the experience that fades away with time? I must do something, at least leave the proof of the lost meaning of their traces.”

(Piotr Perski, 2000-2012, Memory of the Project) 

Installation / various sizes / direct stamps and frottage on Japan paper / photos












Cathedral Stone and Frottage


Cathedral stone


Cathedral stone frottage

Exhibition of Empremtes at Cerdanyola de Valles




Fingerprinting in action


Close up of fingerprint work


Close up of fingerprint work


Behind the scenes of the display


Perski interpreting and drawing the fingerprints
during the presentation of the book.



Barcelona & San Francisco


In his Barcelona – San Francisco “INLINE” exposition at the Geras Tousignant Gallery, Piotr Perski (Kalisz, Poland, 1971) gives us his painted view of two well-known cities. The INLINE (ON LINE) in the title bears no reference to images in digital media or Internet, it is a metaphor. Being On-Line means “being in touch”, “being connected” with one another. The traveler creates “lines”, provides experiences and visions, if not new, then renewed. The “line” is what the traveler draws in his peregrinations. The assumption being that the experience of the viewer will perhaps be “the line” that will contribute to the “rediscovery” of the experience in everyday environments. Piotr does it through his medium, his art, the painting. Piotr Perski explores the connection between perception and art of the place, whose streets he roams. He contemplates the two cities, Barcelona on the Mediterranean and San Francisco on the Pacific, similar in the sense of both being open to the sea, from the artistic perspective (there are many historical and cultural connections), a relationship that the painter himself establishes and decides to project “Inline.”

The art and the artistic work of Piotr Perski is a possibility – and a good pretext – to escape the boredom of everyday sights.


Barcelona I / 6” x 30” / oil on canvas mounted on wood


San Francisco I / 6” x 30” / oil on canvas mounted on wood


San Francisco II / 6” x 30” / oil on canvas mounted on wood


Montjuic / 6” x 36” / oil on canvas mounted on wood


Sagrada Familia / 6” x 40” / oil on canvas mounted on wood


Castro / 6” x 24” / oil on canvas mounted on wood


Golden Gate Bridge / 6” x 12” / oil on canvas mounted on wood



New York City


The name of this exhibition from the Polish artist (1971 Kalisz), based in Barcelona, that is presented here, points out aspects of his work that has developed through three different art forms, real and symbolic spaces of transit passage, landscapes, graphic narratives and surfaces that sustain us, but often go unnoticed. The different techniques and different projects of artistic experimentation, all with the common transit perspective.

Barcelona-Nueva York, 2015, are paintings of urban landscape, a theme which has focused the work of the artist. A peculiarity in the context of contemporary painting, Piotr Perski painted from life, in certain critical quarters this is considered an outdated practice, his work needs direct experience with the landscape, assuming the difficulty of the project it is almost impossible to represent, to retain the ephemeral moment of light that is projected onto the buildings or the skies that fade before your eyes.

The second contribution to this exhibition, with the axis and focal point of Transits, is peculiar in the trajectory of Piotr Perski, its conceptual character both in its formal and technical realization. The impressions through frottages (rubbings) in role of the relief from certain deposits on surfaces of the soil of New York. In this case the artist rescues fragments of significant images of the city, which are located on the ground and are stepped on, places of transit, again, by thousands of people at all times, that have returned a look that can provide us with amazing references. 

New York stories, 2015, develops a graphical facet that plays conceptual and formally with the idea of identity and accounts of experiences. His fingerprint impressions (literally printing ink of the traces of fingers) are complemented by drawings of simple appearance of characters, animals, trees, buildings, symbols, transportation, with strong poetic narrative. 

The artistic work of Piotr Perski collected in this exhibition reflects transits by territories and experiences, very significant paradoxes of today’s world, the confluence of technical and conceptual pre-modern, modern and postmodern, the survival of a Polish original identity through a nomadic identity. The contradictions that a man finds in artistic works, transiting between the need to survive in a hostile world and the rescue of beauty and life.

José María Barragán Rodríguez
Professor of the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Barcelona



Manhattan / 50 x 100 cm / oil on canvas


The Crystal Tower / 45 x 89 cm / oil on canvas


NYC Towers / 50 x 100 cm / oil on canvas


Elaboration of the Project / Map of New York City








Subway / 30,5 x 40 cm / frottage on paper

Gas / 30,5 x 20 cm / frottage on paper


WSNY / 35 x 30 cm / frottage on paper


Cityscape / 97 x 30,5 cm / frottage on paper


Union Square / 92 x 30,5 cm / frottage on paper


Wall Street / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper


NYC Streets / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper


Empire State / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper


Crystal Tower / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper


NYC Identities / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper


NY Homes / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper


MOMA / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper 


China Town / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper


Green Point / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper


Subway / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper


Central Park / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper


Hudson River / 42 x 29,7 cm / fingerprints and drawing on paper



Porcelain Figures


Temps de Flors - Girona 
The flowers and the secret life of objects

For more than 30 years ago I collect porcelain, I studied history, art, and marks the most important European manufacturers during this long time. The collection grew with enormous speed. The idea of "giving new life 'to the objects we keep has been developed with the fact to try to save something that anyone cares.  Preserve and transform the figures and objects of broken porcelain and faults.

In this new collection of objects and the first exhibition of my sculptures, I seek ideas, ''objets  trouvé "in the French artistic tradition or" ready-made "in England. I plan to show them on a new version of the objects and their relationship to nature and flowers.

I try to create stories and visual metaphors in which if the viewer enters more deeply can find life stories that move us. Encounters between people, love, joy, passage of time ... Stories full of flowers live so little, so ephemeral but important for those moments of life by the meaning we give them.


El Señor de la Flor / 35 cm / porcelana Viejo Paris


La Señora de la Flor / 35 cm / porcelana Viejo Paris


La Gloria de la Conchita / 35 x 40 cm / porcelana Viejo Paris


Manirota / 30 cm / porcelana Viejo Paris


Coda / 30 cm / porcelana


Niezapominajka / 20 cm / porcelana


Frenesí / 18 cm / porcelana


Picnic / 18 x 23 cm / porcelana-biscocho


Orquestra de Lirios-Viejo Nápoles ‘Contrabajo’ / 27 cm / porcelana


Segundo Violín / 23 cm / porcelana


El Fagotista / 22 cm / porcelana


El Chelista / 22 cm / porcelana


El Flautista / 22 cm / porcelana


Dirigente / 23 cm / porcelana


Primer Violín / 23 cm / porcelana



Schubertíada


Drawings of spectrums of emotional frequencies - SCHUBERTRÍADA  al Mestre Morral
Artistic intervention on 03.12.2016 at the Cerdanyola del Vallès Museum, Barcelona
Exhibition from 7.04 to 30.05.2016. Inauguration on April 7, 2016

In this project, Piotr Perski developed the idea of creating a visual image based on the music of Schubert and Jordi Morral i Masià. The project incorporates the theoretical contribution of Jean–Baptiste Joseph Fourier *(1768-1830), a French mathematician and physicist, on the visual representation of sound waves (frequency spectrum) that is defined in a mathematical formula:



       (voice wave and its frequency spectrum)

Although we will not go into the development of his theory here, we will say that through his mathematical formula, a technological system was reached. This system allowed the description of sound waves, which in high-tech devices are recorded and represented in graphs as vertical lines and variables that correspond to the level of sound and notes.

The artist, in his direct intervention in the concert, has worked with the visual-graphic transcription of sound frequencies from his emotional experience. The drawing that he has elaborated for each piece of music has a continuous format of horizontal stripes with a tracing of vertical lines in different colors.

* www.nhm.ac.uk


Drawing #3, Der Lindenbaum (Schubert, 3:15) / 46 x 175 cm / permanent pen, Wenzhou paper


Fragment of Drawing #3


Elaboration of the project (documentation, general test of the concert)