Rafał Wilk’s painting is an energetic emanation of green as colour and motif. “Overgrowth” is a visual record of an intimate encounter with a thicket of wild vegetation. The painting is rooted in wandering, going off the beaten track, getting lost, or taking shortcuts. Wilk’s manner of portraying plants arises from his practice of highlighting seemingly insignificant aspects and bringing the background to the foreground. Suspicious on the margins of urbanity, natural greenery reveals its rejection of the cultural power of cultivation and possession. Ruderal species of plants, colonizing areas heavily transformed by humans, are captured in their expansive vitality and freedom. The beneficial impacts of nature are transferred onto the painting. Wilk’s practice pursues the theme: greenery overgrows the canvas, a tangle of lines occupies its surface in an act of muted improvisation. As nature progressively annexes human space, the composition takes control over the artist’s gesture.

Paweł Brylski