Alarm immersion

Zanurzenie alarmowe (2012) by Bartłomiej Otocki (born in 1978) is an oil painting on canvas, painted using one of the most traditional painting techniques. The process of its creation, however, was hardly traditional. The painting is not a result of observations of nature, nor is it painted purely from imagination. Just like other paintings from the Czy jest bezpiecznie? series, it is an end result of a photograph being processed by the artist using painterly methods. In the case of Otocki’s work, the transformation of digital images – both photographs taken by the artist himself, as well as files found online – has been one of his basic working methods. Through the system of superimposing digital images and their deformation using his original optical tools, Otocki arrives at visual solutions, which he then transfers onto the canvas. Individual images from the Czy jest bezpiecznie? series were created using various image manipulation techniques. In the case of Zanurzenie alarmowe, it was made out of contemporary marine watercolours photographed by the artist from different angles. Based on this source material, Otocki has made a monumental, disturbing painting depicting a stormy sea. This image, devoid of anecdote, thanks to the scale of the painting, the colour scheme used and the alarmist title given to the work, evokes a sense of threat and loss of security. Otocki has skilfully applied the poetics of horror, referring to the apocalyptic vision of a flood deeply rooted in collective imagination, as well as to the catastrophic premonitions related to climate changes and ecological imbalance.

Magdalena Lewoc