ROBERT
MAINKA
Robert Mainka (b. 1990) – painter and photographer. Graduated from Lodz Film School. Winner of regeneration3 competition at Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne.
Exhibited his works at CSW in Warsaw, MWW in Wroclaw, MOCAK in Krakow, Wschodnia Gallery in Lodz, Photofestival in Lodz.
The photography that interested him was always rooted in internal vision – meditation, dream or sudden internal images. Using those visions as a source for photography always required a sketch and that practice naturally evolved into a passion for painting.
Robert Mainka’s paintings are characterized by an excellent painting technique. He works both traditionally, using oil paint, and digitally. The artist pays particular attention to light and details.
PSYPORTRAITS is a series of oil and digital paintings in which Mainka illustrates internal mental states through maximum deformation. Image references range from Old Masters paintings to platform games from the 90s. Some of the paintings started out as oil paintings which were developed digitally later. Some of the paintings started out as digital studies for oil paintings. Thus, in his working method, Mainka mixes traditional techniques with digital capabilities.
The subjects of the paintings are unpleasant autobiographical memories, ranging from childhood traumas to complicated emotional states later in life. The artist comes back to memories from his school days, hated atrocious P.E. lessons, first love rejections, loss of health and a constant longing for the transcendent.
Through successive images, Mainka moves down and down to his inner abyss in order to purify and have fun.
I very rarely see anything internally, although I would like to. Systematic meditation and shouting to the sky are not enough. There is always too little vision. Sometimes, something does come to me, I paint it, but I would live on an eternal vacation if I relied on visions. What can I do when, since I was a child, I dreamed of being like St. John of the Apocalypse, who could see castles built on a dozen of crystal foundations and people made of a different matter?
Create visions beyond the inner eye! On canvas, on paper, digitally. Therefore, I have developed my own picture-making algorithm that produces visions that I would like to see in my head, expanding my limited mind.Reality is absolutely boring for me, I try to get out of it with all my heart. To go beyond even my own hopeless imagination, beyond my own biography! To Make hallucinatory paintings by implementing the picture-making algorithm - it gives you freedom. Visions that have nothing to do with reality on any level, and yet "as if" real. In art, I want to be completely separate from the world and reality.