Actually, why do people try to understand paintings? Somehow it doesn't occur to anyone to try to understand the song of birds. Gertrude Stein has told me recently that after twenty years in the presence of my painting she has finally understood what the landscape represents. This painting is a still life!
Pablo Picasso to one of his friends

Where the ubiquitous factor of decay is concentrated the painterly quality (or picturesque quality) appears, as I understand it. Water stains, lichens, discolouring, dry rot, all this used, well-worn matter and, connected with it, the chaos of object forms and their details are the source if my artistic interests. Things-objects: scaffoldings, landings, platforms, ladders, boxes, sheds, forest houses, concrete and wooden architectural structures constitute in a way semi-finished products, objects of smaller importance and as such existing ONLY in the context of some purpose or the functions performed. They are often of a temporary character. That is why, reduced to the simplest forms devoid of any "decorativeness", they are often made of the worst-quality materials. Depriving them of this context I doom them to existence in a new, surreal dimension, where all the rules are dependent on free imagination only.
In fact, I am fascinated by their simple, primitive form of unpretentious expressiveness, existing beyond time, because it is not liable to the changes of evolution. Therefore I explore close to the ground, where the object is united with the nature and lives in perfect symbiosis with it. I search for archetypes which allow to purify and renew sensitivity, to restore the initial sense to every action. My painting constitutes a kind of excavation. I find images and arrange them fragment after fragment, trying to create a mock-up of my painterly reality.
The theme is followed by a technique. For years I have been using mainly egg tempera on board. It is a technique which allows to reach exceptional precision in details on the one hand and crystal clarity and depth in colour on the other hand. Small sizes of boards are conducive to a cosy and intimate atmosphere, necessary to "catch" the right ambience and calm down. Moreover, apart from a certain convention which is always inseparable from producing images, the board possesses significance and substance (sensuality) of an object and, for me, is closely connected with the world of objects.

A.K.

Andrzej Kozyra'a paintings do not shock the viewer, do not try to impress with the harshness of motifs employed, do not provide treacherous aesthetic surprises, do not bring unexpected turns in the language of painting. Usually not large, sometimes even microscopic surfaces of pictures are filled with contrast between the insignificance of the plane and the abundance and complexity of visual phenomena that it contains. The contrast somehow gently and overwhelmingly enthrals the viewers and makes them fall within the orbit of this painting.

The most important for the painter seems to be the creation of a picture representing reality, however, not the reality we know from the real world perceived with our senses. Despite the fact that we recognize objects quoted from everyday life, they are perceived as distinct configurations of objects and constructions of space with which they have been integrated. The space in Andrzej's paintings has some paradoxical qualities. On the one hand, it inspires a sense of infinity, owing to the complexity of its structure and the abundance of visual motifs; on the other hand, it creates an intense feeling of being limited and closed, like in the case of a theatre’s scene. The painter builds this space consequently employing the illusionistic rules of perspective, capturing and deceiving our eye with the illusion of depth and three-dimensional appearance of buildings, objects, plants or hardly identifiable material vestiges.

When we look deeper "inside" a painting and wander, intrigued, around these phenomena, we discover, surprised, that there is no "depth" into which we can penetrate. The horizon, if it shows up in front of our eyes, turns out to be a motionless illusion. The eye can move smoothly from the foreground to the background, freely penetrate on a small and on a large scale. We can look deeper at the details of the foliage texture on the trees and on the bark of felled trunks and be immediately able to take in the whole forest almost at the same time. The smoothness of this eye-movement resembles the watching of the real world and this quality again demonstrates the distinctness of the painting's reality. The objects in these pictures are made of the same materials that we know from the real world however, we realize that they are used for making completely different things. The rules of operation of complicated mechanical devices and complex geometrical compositions were created by a demiurge, giving vent to his sense of humour, ignoring the cause-and-effect relationships. In the desolate space we can notice traces of beings following their own logic, surprising and unpredictable, however, amazingly humane in its manifestations. Despite the fact that a person very rarely appears in the pictures, the whole space seems to be intensely filled with his/her presence.

From the pictures painted from nature or referring to it directly we get the impression of a moment being captured and therefore of preserved it in the painting. We are accompanied by the conviction that the moment captured is a fragment of the flux of time which has been flowing till now and which will be flowing later. In Andrzej's paintings the moment of sectioning and stopping the time is strongly emphasised. The reality is transformed into a stone, buried in the ground and extracted again, similarly to excavation works. When we are looking at the painting it appears in front of our eyes and we realise that there is an inexplicable gap in the flow of time. The reality was stopped similarly to a dream being cut short at the moment of waking up. The history of the world expressed in these paintings stops in its course the moment we stop looking at it.

Andrzej Kozyra does not emphasize his "painterly writing", does not accentuate the trace of brush, on the contrary, the painterly gesture happens to be so much hidden, that the impression occurs that objects, matters, light have not really been painted but rather have appeared in the pictures. The color with its saturation, tangibility of the impact it makes, ubiquitous delicate structure, sophisticated geometry - they all seem to result from some natural process.

Marek Sikorski

A. Kozyra's paintings, produced in the technique of the Renaissance Masters, can be classified as Polish surrealism. Repetitive themes and characteristic motifs like mazes, houses without roofs, earthworks, toys and medieval fortresses immerse the viewer in an unreal fantasy world. Typical details and often grotesque features remind us of the works of Hieronymus Bosch. There is deep humour in them and a shrewd, critical mind manifests itself. An ambiguous atmosphere prevails, made up of pessimism and hope. These magical visions can certainly be interpreted as metaphors, referring the viewer to the social reality.

F. Zehnder