Following his first encounter with ceramics in 2011, while living in Warsaw, Krzysztof Strzelecki adopted it as his primary medium after a trip to Japan in 2019. In addition to his shaped ceramic vases, Strzelecki also employs photography, installation, and painting to explore the human body and its natural environment.
Read MoreIn his major photographic series 'Alone in the Wilderness', Strzelecki photographs his nude body in outdoor settings, examining moments in which the human form imitates, integrates with, or contrasts against nature. The artist almost disappears into the surrounding sand in one image, invisible except for a vivid blue cloth he waves with his hand; in another, his body is a rounded, crouching form against the lines of a ridge seen from a distance.
Religious and mythological iconography can often be seen in Strzelecki's work as with the large-scale installation It's all about ME, Not You (2017). The title refers to a 1996 work by American artist Greer Lankton, a room installation occupied by dolls and figures that reveals an intense engagement with the artist's self and personal life. In his own work, Strzelecki transfers a larger-than-life photograph of two figures onto translucent fabric. A person, draped in blue, holds onto a young man from behind, the pose echoing the Virgin Mary and Christ in Michelangelo's Pietà Rondanini.
In an artist's statement, Strzelecki compares Jesus to his corporeal self and Mary to his inner being, while prompting questions about the conflict between religion and homosexuality in a highly religious country such as Poland.
Strzelecki's ceramic vases in the 'Cruising Fantasies' series are characterised by their irregular shapes—round, sinuous, hourglass, rectangular, or architectural—and painted scenes often featuring natural landscapes and male bodies. Through illustrations of recognisable London parks, among them Hampstead Heath and Regent's Park, Strzelecki addresses the absence of gay life in visual arts and offers a utopian vision of sexual freedom.
