Robert Lardus – abstract acrylic artworks at Gallery Postepu

You create abstract acrylic artworks series. What is the idea behind your works?

Robert Lardus: I chose a post-painterly abstraction because my goal is to search for abstract beauty. I am looking for a harmony of forms and colors. I create based on balanced simple compositions. My abstract acrylic artworks are painted alla prima. Each stain of color applied to the canvas or paper stays and will stay, in its unchanging form, an element of the image. Thanks to this, I paint very spontaneously.

Does spontaneity mean that you don’t have a clear concept for each painting?

Robert Lardus: That I have to explain. I create pictures in series. Before that, I do a lot of sketches. Thanks to this, my abstract acrylic artwroks are subject to the rigor of a previously thought-out composition. On the other hand, I paint spontaneously, I want to have fun with painting. I want to enjoy the painting process itself.

What are you looking for when creating?

Robert Lardus: I am looking for beauty. No picture is perfect. What matters is the process, subsequent attempts, subsequent experiences. Thanks to creativity, we develop and experience new impressions. Because the idea of ​​searching for beauty is more interesting than finding the ideal of beauty.

Endless, abstract pursuit of beauty?

Robert Lardus: Beauty is fleeting. Beauty is a moment, a moment, a state our mind is in. This feeling is not an object. What is beautiful in beauty is its transience and impermanence. Otherwise beauty gets boring. Being in the midst of beauty constantly devalues ​​its value. Changeability, searching, surprises, expectation – this is the essence of beauty in my opinion.

Is that why you adhere to post-painterly painting?

Robert Lardus: The idea of ​​this style of painting is based on the rejection of abstract expressionism and any reference to the outside world. What I would like to create in the DYSMORPHOPHOBIA series is purely abstract art, an abstract idea. Each painting is a pretext to study the elements of the painting medium itself. Abstract acrylic painting is great for studying form, color, texture, composition and so on. And this allows me to say that each painting is beautiful because each has its own inner idea.

In this series, you use bright, intense colors. Your works are joyfully spontaneous.

Robert Lardus: This approach was the basis of the concept for the works of the HUMANOGRAPHY series. My point was to achieve the effect of spontaneity. I also wanted the images to be detached from associations. I wanted to create surprising compositions with the richness of colorful and formal combinations. In my abstract acrylic artworkss, I wanted to „discuss” beauty with the viewer.

Why did you call your works HUMANOGRAPHY?

Robert Lardus: The name is perverse. The mania of taking care of one’s appearance leads to problems with accepting the appearance we have. Dysmorphophobia is a distortion of our body image. It is the inability to accept the „beauty” that we have within us. There is no ideal. Searching for the ideal of beauty instead of ambiguity, diversity of beauty. Who sets the canon of beauty, if each of us thinks differently, feels differently? In my abstract acrylic artworks I convince viewers that there are infinitely many ideals of beauty.