In his Barcelona – San Francisco  “INLINE” exposition at the Geras Tousignant Gallery, Piotr Perski (Kalisz, Poland, 1971) gives us his painted view of two well-known cities. The INLINE (ON LINE) in the title bears no reference to images in digital media or Internet, it is a metaphor. Being On-Line means “being in touch”, “being connected” with one another. The traveler creates “lines”, provides experiences and visions, if not new, then renewed.

The “line” is what the traveler draws in his peregrinations. The assumption being that the experience of the viewer will perhaps be “the line” that will contribute to the “rediscovery” of the experience in everyday environments. Piotr does it through his medium, his art, the painting.

 

Piotr Perski explores the connection between perception and art of the place, whose streets he roams. He contemplates the two cities, Barcelona on the Mediterranean and San Francisco on the Pacific, similar in the sense of both being open to the sea, from the artistic perspective (there are many historical and cultural connections), a relationship that the painter himself establishes and decides to project “Inline”. This is the vision he works on in San Francisco, the vision that is being presented to us by this traveler who has come a long way from a small inland town of Kalisz – also one of the oldest Polish towns – in Eastern Europe.  

 

We will see in his paintings buildings, skies and general views of the two cities, some of them very well-known but transformed through his eyes. It is not easy to reinterpret characteristic images and create a personal view. But Piotr Perski does it. He does it in two ways; firstly by persisting in the employment of the “representation from nature”, a XIXth century notion, which in spite of the passage of time is again considered to be innovative because it makes us think of the actual process of painting. And secondly, by limiting the variety of resources, which have, for centuries, been at the disposal of artists. These two are the means of expression in his artistic discourse.