In 2014, SymPhar was a sponsor of an exhibition called Self-pharmacological /In casi di cattivi odori by Jacek Sroka held at the Museum of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Collegium Medicum.
The artist writes about “Self-portrait pharmacological” in the catalogue introduction:
“For around a dozen years, once a year, I have painted a pharmacological self-portrait. I put on the canvas drug packages in a semi-realistic manner, so that a trained eye can easily see what medications I am currently taking. My paintings are not just a story of my diseases, of recovering and being dependent on them, but paradoxically they are also a record of time: changes to treatment methods, medicaments, maybe some medical malpractice. ..”
Professor Maria Hussakowska in the text published in the catalogue “His right (or left) foot” discusses in an interesting way not only a series of self-portraits, but also the other series of paintings presented at the exhibition “In caso di cattivi odori”.
“Tools – or parts of them – fill us with terror, but at first glance, we can conclude that they come from various oppressors and the hospital thread is mixed with other orders of torture. Continuation of the author’s infinite creativity is shown in the subsequent paintings with a foot in the lead role. Vices, drills, pumps, screws puzzling with sinister blades, all attack the author’s lonely foot – probably. (But he gives out miniatures of feet to his friends and I, for example, after a very complicated fracture of my ankle, look at it differently – with a lot of respect). Paintings of the tortured foot are a comedy in several scenes, perfectly painted and surprising in details.”
More about the author: www.sroka.pl
