Bęc – as a student of Jerzy Nowosielski at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, studying in the 1980s, which were specific for spiritual exploration – was moulded by a tradition in which painting rather expresses what is invisible, or at least struggles with invisibility. Sometimes, Bęc’s paintings referenced specific themes, such as the emptiness left in the wake of post-war population displacement or the tensions embedded in desolate landscapes. In these spaces, small traces of human presence take on an air of ominous drama. More often, however, the subtle hints of representation in his work called for a response rooted in the viewer's own experiences, relying on their imagination to give resonance to what is suggested. Bęc’s paintings are undeniably meditative. The artist's careful gestures merely support what already seems to exist. As it begins to emerge more clearly, it seeks confirmation of its existence through the perceptions and sensibilities of others. When Bęc studied in Cracow, the legacy of modernism was still influential, often intertwined with metaphysical concerns. Master Jerzy Nowosielski, for instance, painted abstract works, and even his figurative pieces carried an emphasis on transcendence and spiritual depth. Modernist painting in that era embodied an ethos of simplicity and nobility, values that resonated deeply in the politically charged 1980s, when artists often positioned themselves against the oppressive state following martial law. Transcendence became both a weapon of resistance and a source of spiritual sustenance. Yet, the 1980s were also marked by rebellion. Strict adherence to traditional painting methods could seem overly conformist, while embracing the then-popular “new wild” movement risked feeling impersonal and formulaic.

The artist took a different path, seeking subtle, intimate moods and small revelations in moments of quiet rather than the noise and clamor of overt expression. He rejected the martyr-like pathos that characterized much of 1980s painting, favoring instead a focus on epiphanies. He articulated this vision brilliantly, explaining that painting should not aim to create new, parallel worlds but to uncover what already exists. “Something is howling, and it needs to be realized,”[1] he once said. And since “it is howling,” since “something is already howling,” and “its eye is winking,”[2] then no leap toward what is above was necessary. For Bęc, spirituality became immanent – rooted in the corporeal, sensual and material. The world depicted in his paintings surprises with its irreducible otherness – its resistance to being confined to modes of use or exploitation. When Bęc was studying at the Academy, personal computers did not yet exist, and no one could have foreseen that painting would one day be predominantly experienced through screens. The material presence of painting, forged in that pre-digital era, remains central to Bęc’s work even today. Perhaps it is to this materiality that Bęc has remained most loyal, along with his enduring attachment to certain colors. His fidelity to the tactile, physical essence of painting serves as a reminder of its power to evoke, reveal, and resist.

The artist's paintings have long used not only the ambiguity of purple/violet (occasionally touched with a hint of muted yellow), but also the ambivalence of an unruly, flowing stain, escaping the precision and bluntness of drawing. The stain at times obscures, and at others it sets while flowing and changing shape, recalcitrant and untameable. Purple often swirls, and when applied in successive layers, it comes close to black. It was probably about such a dark, matte tone that Wittgenstein wrote on another occasion (in Bemerkungen über die Farben) that it reminded him of the sound of a kettle drum [3]. However, sometimes the purple dissolves and, soaking into the white of the canvas, brightens, becoming transparent and so light that it almost heralds the joy of spring lilac. In turn, the background of Bęc's paintings has changed over time, not always limiting itself to art gallery requirements of neat merchandise and capitalist marketing. The nobility and solidity of thick linen were giving way to the poverty of washed cotton, while the perfectly applied primer –  stiff and smooth – seemed to age like skin, folding into wrinkles and painful scratches. Although it might seem that the artist's impulsiveness is at play here, supported by an internal compulsion (when one has to paint on almost everything), with this alleged impulsive indomitableness, an extremely rational reflection on the essence of painting is repeated - never leading to a conclusion. Does a painting really have to be a rectangle resembling a window, thus referring to a relatively short tradition? Board, wood, cardboard, unprimed canvas and an unstretched piece of fabric hanging somewhere from above, in space, almost chaotically – these different bases seem to ask what it actually means to cover something with colour and change its specific, natural hue. Are worlds created when painting or is it only painting polychromy to camouflage what is underneath? Does it hint at what must remain undiscovered or does it rather uncompromisingly reveal something so naturalised that it is almost imperceptible? Or maybe it admits its own helplessness in depicting?

[1]  Ireneusz Bęc – Artyści Galerii Olympia, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQioMUk4Bnw (accessed: 7.01.2025).
[2] Ibidem.
[3] Andrew Lugg, Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Colour. A Commentary and Interpretation (London-New York: Anthem Press, 2021),107.

The entire text is available in the exhibition catalog.