He was born in 1974 in Dąbrowa Białostocka. Painter, and photographer, author of installations.

In 1999, Rogalski earned a degree in painting under professor Jerzy Kałucki at the Poznań Academy of Fine Arts. In 2001, he won the main prize in the Eugeniusz Geppert Painting Competition. Between 2000-2002 he operated in a duo with Hubert Czerepok as The Magisters (photography, video). Represented by Galeria Raster. Lives and works in Warsaw.

"The Vengeance of the Old Indian" 2001, 180x220 cm

"Untitled" 2003

Rogalski belongs to a generation of painters that debuted around 2000. He often paints in series. His pictures often contain multi-level narratives, hence he has been called an 'image director'. During his studies and immediately afterwards however the most frequent motif of Rogalski's work was painting itself. His canvases show the painter at work, talk about their own making, not so much representing reality as revealing the process of the making of the representation. They also often allude to the work of other painters. In the tradition of Jackson Pollock, Rogalski emphasises the painter's gesture, and has actually made the action painter the subject of several of his pictures. In a reference to Hans Namuth's photographs showing Pollock splashing paint across a canvas spread on the floor, Rogalski painted a scene where Pollock is helped by another person (2000). He also portrayed himself painting Pollock ("Painting Jackson Pollock", 2000). His early paintings utilised the well-known historical motif of the artist at the easel, but in Rogalski's case the picture showing him at work and the picture being painted were one and the same. In one of the canvases, titled "The Vengeance of the Old Indian" (2000), the artist, hit by an arrow, tries in his last gesture to paint a blue circle. In several pieces from 2003, Rogalski paints over the fragment of the canvas where he himself is represented, as if the couple of brushstrokes were to annihilate him. Another frequent motif of Rogalski's works is his studio, in which he portrays himself (e.g. "About a Neighbour's Death", 2003; "Self-Portrait Under a Canvas", 2003). The motif of artistic creation sometimes appears here in an ironic, or even mocking, context, as in the piece "Euro" (2003), showing the counterfeiting of euro notes.

"Partisan's Death" 2005, 130x180 cm

Rogalski is also interested in the phenomenon of other people's perception. The scenes shown in his paintings depict not so much the represented reality as the way it is perceived. In the series "Closer" (2006), the artist portrayed, in extreme close-up, the faces of figures lying on the ground. The images are blurred, out of focus, as if seen from too close a distance. The series "Partisan's Death" (2005) shows a woods seen from the point of view of a person lying on the ground, the tree trunks forming concentric circle against the background of the sky. The grey, almost monochrome pieces are at the same time an attempt to render the moment of death, the final look. In "How She Sees the Moon" (2007), the question refers to the subject's sight defect - the image of the Moon is double.

"Closer (Self-Portrait)" 2006, 180x120cm, oil on canvas

"How she sees the moon" 2007, 160x160 cm

A frequent motif of Rogalski's paintings is the mirror image, as well as inscriptions made on steamed up windows and mirrors, places where reality coexists with its own reflection (the series "Heroes", 2003-2005). In the piece "Björk" (2003), the image of the half-naked artist is reflected in a steamed-up bathroom mirror, on which the name of the Icelandic singer has been finger-written. In other canvases appear the names of cosmonauts (e.g. Gagarin, 2003), or philosophers, such as Fukuyama, Baudrillard, Zizek (the series "Lifts", 2005). In the series "Private Spring" (2005), the interior of the artist's studio is reflected in glass-framed landscape photos. The "Coffin Portraits" (2005), in turn, are a series of reflections in the kind of glass photographs usually mounted on gravestones.

"Private Spring" 2005, 120x170 cm, oil on canvas

"Coffin Portrait, NN" 2005, 120x120 cm, oil on canvas

A number of Rogalski's paintings build on free associations evoked by random objects or everyday articles. This is the guiding principle of the series "Projects" (2003), showing simplified, schematic images of detached houses with huge tank cannons sticking out of their roofs. Sometimes it is the artist himself who constructs the analogy by arranging daily-life objects into familiar patterns. In "Similar Pictures" (2003), for instance, those were the title sequences of the major film studios (e.g. "Paramount Pictures", "20th Century Fox").

"Similar Pictures (Paramount Pictures)" 2003, 73x85 cm

"Untitled (Heroes)" 2003, 140x110 cm

Rogalski employed a similar strategy in "Projection" (2006), a collaboration with Michał Budny, where the two artists offered a somewhat ironic look at the history of the project of building a museum of modern art in Warsaw. They created the suggestion of a video-installation, only the 'projectors' had been made with cardboard by Budny, and the 'projected image' had been painted by Rogalski. At first sight, the project appeared to be a modern architectural design, whereas in reality it consisted just of cardboard models. Budny and Rogalski participated also on the occasion of the group exhibition Here a Change Occurs at the Kordegarda in Warsaw in 2007, which dealt with the disappearance of modernist architecture from Warsaw's urban landscape. The artists designed a simple geometric portal that they wanted to place in front of the Kordegarda building as a modernistic symbol of the white cube of the gallery. The project was not executed.

"Air" 2006, 160x160cm, photo series, c-print, aluminium, plexi

"Projection" (with Michał Budny), 2006

Most recently, Rogalski created a series of large-format photographs on aluminium under plexiglas called "Air" (2007). Collaborating with Andrzej Kruszewicz, chief ornithologist of the Warsaw zoo, he photographed birds' wings. Placed on a neutral, white background, they make a meaningful reference to death and transience.

Author: Karol Sienkiewicz, October 2007

"Cups" 2000, 170x440 cm

Selected solo exhibitions:

• 1999 - "Malarstwo", Galeria Arsenał, Białystok
• 2000
  - "Child in Time" - Galeria ON, Poznań
  - "Malarz" - Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw
• 2003 - "Autoportret pod płótnem" - Galeria Arsenał, Białystok; Raster, Warsaw; BWA, Zielona Góra; Galeria Kronika, Bytom
• 2004 - "Mute" - Galerie Griedervonputtkamer, Berlin, Germany
• 2005
  - "Śmierć partyzanta" - Raster, Warsaw
  - "Daydreaming" - Galeria Entropia, Wrocław
  - "Private Spring" - Göttingen Kunstverein, Goettingen, Germany
• 2006
  - "Projekcja" - Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw (with Michał Budny)
  - "Letter" - Galeria Monika Spruth Philomene Magers, Munich, Germany
• 2007 - "Air" - Galerie Almine Rech, Paris, France

Selected group exhibitions:

• 1999
  - "Najgroźniejsze pędzle" - Królikarnia, Warsaw
  - "Polska abstrakcja analityczna II" - BWA, Wrocław
  - "Bielska jesień '99" - Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała
• 2000 - "Scena 2000" - Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw
• 2001
  - "Rybie oko" - Bałtycka Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej, Słupsk
  - 4. Krajowa Wystawa Malarstwa Młodych - BWA Awangarda, Wrocław
  - "Relaks" - Galeria Arsenał, Białystok
  - "Malarstwo polskie 2001" - Galeria Stara, Lublin
  - "Dobro" - Raster, Warsaw
• 2002
  - "Rewolucja" - Raster, Warsaw
  - "Rybie oko" - Bałtycka Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej, Słupsk
  - "Rzeczywiście młodzi są realistami" - Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw
• 2003
  - "Age of Romanticism" - Art Palace, Lviv, Ukraine; Polish Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine (2004)
  - "Zaangażowani / Wyrachowani" - Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia, Gdańsk
• 2004
  - "From my window. Artists and their Territories" - École National Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France
  - "Zasiedzenie" - Galeria Miejska Arsenał, Poznań
  - "Under the White-and-Red Flag" - Estonian Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia; Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania; National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, Russia
  - "Art Brussels" - Brussels, Belgium
• 2005
  - "Private Spring" - Gottinger Kunstverein, Goettingen, Germany
  - "Hank You for the Music" - Sprüth Magers Gallery, Munich, Germany
  - "Broniewski" - Raster, Warsaw; BWA, Zielona Góra (2007)
  - "Prague Biennale 2" - Prague, Czech Republic
  - "Revenge on Realism" - Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna, Austria
  - "Malarstwo - Zimne medium" - Galeria Piekary, Poznań
  - "Potencjał" - Metropolitan Building, Warsaw
• 2006
  - "Malarstwo polskie XXI wieku" - Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw
  - "Gut und billig" - PackHof Museum Junge Kunst, Frankfurt Oder, Germany
  - "Fiac" - art fair, Paris, France
  - "Neuerwerbungen der Sammlung Marx" - Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
  - "Is It Better to Be a Good Artist or a Good Person?" - Rental Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
• 2007
  - "Muzeum jako świetlany przedmiot pożądania" - Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź
  - "Kilkadziesiąt sekund źle wywołanej taśmy filmowej" - Galeria Raster, Warsaw
  - "Tu zaszła zmiana" - Galeria Kordegarda, Warsaw

"Cover picture" 2001, 240x240 cm

Browsing history