distorted clarity

edit: Konrad Jarodzki, a painter, architect and professor passed away in November 2021. It was an honor and a pleasure to have met him (thanks to our good mutual friend Valdemar Plusa) and become close enough to be invited over to his home and his studio and experience the privilege of listening to his life stories over tea on many occasions. Although he was never my professor or mentor, I know that he meant a great deal to many artists, those he had impacted directly as their teacher, as well as all those who have been impacted by his life's work. He will be greatly missed.

Back in 2013 I was very fortunate to work with the Cztery Strony Kultury Foundation (Wroclaw, Poland) in partnership with the Chashama Foundation (NYC, NY) on organizing an exhibit of paintings by Konrad Jarodzki, a Polish painter who after feeling deeply moved and disturbed by the events of 9/11 felt inspired to create a series of works relating to those events. The exhibition titled "Distorted Clarity" opened in New York City in September 2013.

Beyond the regular events management tasks, my involvement in this project also pertained to being the photographer covering all of the events relating to the exhibit.

During the time of the exhibit in New York City, Konrad Jarodzki's filmmaker grandson, Lukasz Srodka, was shooting a documentary about his grandfather's life and work. The film titled "In Absolute Silence" premiered in 2017. For one of the scenes in the movie, Konrad was pulling a huge case of his large scale paintings across the streets of Manhattan. Here are some of the photographs I took from our live NYC movie set:

And here is a selection of some of Konrad's portraits I captured in 2013 over a period of several months while having the honor to shadow him in various places across two continents- from his childhood home in rural Poland, though his hometown of Wroclaw, Lower Silesia, all the way to the New York's Manhattan in the US.