09/08. W Daugavpils | 09/08. In Daugavpils

At the beginning of his artistic career, which coincided with the period of martial law in Poland, Marek Radke (1952-) painted figurative paintings that were a critical commentary on the political situation of the time. He decided to emigrate in 1983 and has lived and worked in Germany for almost forty years. He then began to create three-dimensional, spatial pictorial structures. As Anna Saciuk-Gąsowska, a historian and curator at the Museum of Art in Łódź, has aptly pointed out, his abstract, geometrically constructed compositions, which bear no relation to reality, have their source not in descriptive geometry but in nature, in the geometry of all things. Throughout Radke's work, as in all things in nature, chaos is subject to elemental interactions. From the 1990s onwards, Radke created object reliefs, carved in board or MDF, typically featuring individual geometric shapes, highlighted in colour against a monochrome background. He soon moved on to forms that he described as painting objects, or sculptural forms that also involve the space around the work. Radke arranges his exhibitions in non-obvious ways - works are hung on walls, but not only that, they are arranged or placed on the floor, hung from the ceiling. Another avenue Radke has taken in his creative explorations is ultraviolet radiation. It makes the orange, green and gold spheres hanging in the gallery glow like unearthly objects floating in space. In his extensive artistic oeuvre, Radke does not shy away from experimenting with materials, playing with colour, light and the viewer's perception. In 2018, the National Museum in Szczecin hosted his solo exhibition entitled 'Gold, Silver and...', which presented a fascinating, colourful world that appeals to both the intellect and the emotions of the viewer. This exhibition also included the painting 09/08. Marlena Chybowska-Butler.