‘I Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was In’ is a solo exhibition by a Warsaw-based artist Jan Możdżyński (b. 1986) of his latest body of work – a personal and sentimental exploration of identity and its shaping. In the media of oil painting and ceramic sculpture, Jan confronts the future he imagined as a child with the future that came.
Jan Możdżyński’s painting and sculpture usually refers to his imagined worlds, rooted in science-fiction and games, occupied by characters and figurines free of limitations of gender and normativity, but full of attitudes, moods, and infatuations. Here, Jan newly inserts real-life characters into his canvas; depicting himself for the first time, and his cats and turtle, he brings slightly more realism into his works, as his practice explicitly becomes one of reflexivity.
With the bittersweet taste of coming of age, Jan ponders identity and body, the challenges of loving and loss, giving up the prospect of parenthood, and finding solace in companionship of animals. He positions himself within the designs of a world imagined by a child who watched The Jetsons and Teknoman, or Blade Runnerand Gattaca, but met with the realities of growing up. This use of futurism continues a tradition of escapism from inequality, violence and brutality for communities who experience it.
With big cat heads looking over the skyline like a moon, and buildings coming to life, the paintings zoom in on the inhabitants of the city and its structures. The architecture of the paintings is mirrored by a series of small-scale ceramic sculptures – its parts are building blocks designed to be played with and moved around, inviting the audience to play a part in conceiving the cityscape.
What a wonderful feeling just to know that you are near, 2025, oil on canvas, 170*130cmI’m a tiger when I want love and I’m a snake if we disagree, 2025, oil on canvas, 140*100cmI pushed my soul in a deep dark hole and then I followed it in, 2025, oil on canvas, 160*130cmOnly wanna touch the things I’ve seen, 2024, oil on canvas, 90*80cmStepping lightly from star to star, 2025, oil on canvas, 110*90cmI tripped on a cloud and fell eight miles high, 2025, oil on canvas, 120*100cmOne day I’m gonna fly there on a firefly, 2025, oil on canvas, 90*70cmMy love lives at the end of a rainbow, 2025, oil on canvas, 60*50cmFirst-purred, 2024, ceramic glazed, 15*15*15cmE-T, 2024, ceramic glazed, 10*5*7cm
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