Director

"'Director' is part of a series that Wilhelm Sasnal has dedicated to his hometown of Tarnów, which also includes other paintings that are part of the Serralves Collection: 'Mościce 1', 'Mościce 2' and 'Mościce 3', all from 2005. The paintings are based on photographs of the State Works of Nitrogen Compounds in Mościce, an industrial borough of Tarnów, revealing unknown details of the local history and environment of the town. 'Director' depicts the first director of the plant, Tadeusz Zwisłocki. In contradiction to the spirit of pride and optimism that informs the original pictures, Sasnal’s dark portrait suggests a corrupted reality: the utopian promise of industry offering employment and progress leading to a terrible failure.
Sasnal’s interest in creating artworks on his experience of everyday life fostered the use of imagery from a range of readily available sources, including books, magazines, the internet and record covers. In an era saturated by photographic images, the artist confirms in his paintings the ability to seduce the viewer into paying attention to what at first sight may seem an ordinary subject matter but which contain more disturbing histories."