Friday,
19 April
Over the last few years, Norman Leto has made the film Photon, an extraordinary film hybrid, a quasi-documentary with a plot, a natural program and an interview with a scientist in one. Anyone who has seen Norman’s workshop at that time will remember a computer connected to a TV of a few-dozen inches, which established the artist’s daily main view. Photon is not only the sum of Norman Leto’s scientific interests and a powerful dose of knowledge, but also a demonstration of his technique. The main part of the film are visualizations of biological processes realized in a 3D animation technique, a counterpoint of which are video scenes, recordings of nature or situations at home. The balance between them allows him to keep the viewer’s attention and at the same time give a narrative strain to a scientific lecture.
During filmmaking, the author himself had to maintain a similar balance between the digitally-created and the outside world. Hence, concurrently, in a way to allow his perception “to rest,” he spent his time realizing painting ideas. It seems to be a gesture like a reality test after the working hours in the virtual world. Norman’s painting is characterized by formal diversity, leaning towards photorealism at one time, and towards matter painting at another. The emotional temperature of Leto’s paintings extends between romantic sublimity and the concrete. This diversity reflects the experimental nature of the artist, testing different forms and languages of recognizing reality. One cannot overlook the fact that the subject of both films and painting of Leto is the material world, regardless of the size of the frame, either in a microscopic approximation or in the form of a portrait or landscape. Ultimately, in Norman’s hands the computer keyboard and the brush are tools for perception and description of facts. What’s more, there is an intermingling between them, a synergy, because it seems that painting practice is the basis of the artistic vision of animated sequences in the film, which guarantees their “realism.”
The exhibition “Kintop. From the film” through several juxtapositions (painting and video, realistic and abstract images) shows the variety of Norman Leto’s practices and provides the viewer with access to the technique of the artist, who in the past years has made an extraordinary transfer from a respected artist to an acclaimed and award-winning filmmaker. We hope to thoroughly outline the background and the most important themes of his work.
Curator: Michał Lasota
1. Question about the origin of movement, 2013, 200×150 cm, oil and industrial paint on canvas
2. Question about complexity, 2013, 90x90cm, oil and industrial paint on canvas
3. Question about the origin of space and perspective, 2013, 90×90 cm, oil and industrial paint on canvas
4. Question about the origin of symmetry, 2013, 200×150 cm, oil and industrial paint on canvas
1. Boy with -Go and see- / ……, 120×160 cm, oil on canvas
2. Illegal imigrant 99, 2013, 160 x110 cm, oil on canvas
3. Gainsborough ex portrait, 2007, 160×140 cm, oil on canvas
4. Barber’s Portrait 3 – Alex, 150×130 cm, oil on canvas
5. A frame from a hotel TV in France, 2009, 100×125 cm oil on canvas
6. Spoiled amongst people, 2013-2014, 130×130 cm, oil on canvas