Manna

A graphic object created from the artist's self-made paper, onto which he printed two types of copies – the etcher's own gestures representing spikes, as well as irregularities of naturally formed soil with small plants and rocks. Due to the fact that soil constituted the matrix forming the still moist paper pulp, it is difficult to differentiate between the background and the representation. After all, the artist is one of the visual authors who discovered the potential of ground as a substance. Although the rule of printmaking is to copy, the uniqueness of each print made by the artist results from the manufacturing of the paper (through the use of local plants and cellulose, which inscribe the aura of the landscape in which the paper was created), as well as from the attitude towards the matrix. The duality of Marek Jaromski's output – who attempts to inscribe his own energy into nature and its ideals – cannot be properly understood without religious connotations. In a sense, Jaromski tries to learn from nature by peeking at its divine plan and by suppressing his creative enthusiasm, in order to seek harmony with what is surrounding him. Thus, duality is rather the unveiling of the difficult starting point, since the destination point is to be the alignment with God's design. In this way, the trace of a naturally shaped form (frequently of all over composition) becomes an element of meditation which transforms into action. The manna from the title is equally a reference to the biblical story about the nourishment given by God to the Israelites on their way to the Promised Land (since the forms on the print seem to be referring to the biblical description of the food as “a flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground”, Exodus 16:14), as well as to the spiritual food. Each copy by Marek Jaromski bears the memory of the matter and the processes of its transformation, and hence, the presented concurs the expressed. [A. Markowska]