On the beach in Świnoujście after the storm you can meat Tadeusz Zielinski. He is the local painter. He walks slowly, picking up almost every piece of wood. He looks at it and caresses it. After a careful considerations he takes it with him. Every time he wonders hwta kind of story will be told by the particular piece of wood. After a few weeks a paining painted on the wood given back by the sea will astonish lots of people.

Wood has life-says Tadeusz Zielinski-it emits warmth-he continues. When I take a piece of wood in hand I wonder where it comes from and how long has it been in the sea for. Is is a part of a sunken boat?

When the artist starts his work he tries to choose pieces of wood to creat a whole. He never cuts them to fit or smoothes them. They are very plastic in itself-ha says.
Tadeusz Zielinski sits above the ready to paint piece of wood. He touches it and caresses it. In sucha way he communicates with it. He says that it will tell him what to pain and how to do it. Most often it is sacral painting or marine painting. During his life he has painted mostly icons.

His first painting was an icon on a piece of wood dug up from a pile of clay. It has been 35 since than. Works of Tadeusz Zielinski can be seen in local churches and Mariner House. There are two works he can't live without one is a pieta painted on a piece of wood given back by the sea

- You can see how quickly paintings created directly on wood fade away. I have to reapaint it every now and than-says Tadeusz Zielinski.

Deisis or Jesus surrounded by saints hungs over the fire place. This way it is tested for heat. It is painted on treated wood. The surface is cleaned, fats and lipids are removed. It is smoothed. On such surface cloth is stretched. Only than you can paint the artwork. Later on the artist created the little surface cracks that make the icons look aged. It is a deep secret than Me. Zielinsks doesn't shate with anybody.

Its nice to seat in a place where every piece of natural material has found its place. The artist himself says that he appreciates wood more and more.

Tekst: Katarzyna Czerwińska

Before paint starts to take shape of red tunics of the saints i before the brush starys to form beards, the plank has to be whipped by the sea. The painter doesn't use fabric. He puts on shoes, opens the gate to his 135 year old bunker of the old prussian fort and goes to the beach.
During the storm the sea screams, jerks, almost like trying to rid itself of some binds. It is hard to tame. Tadeusz's paintings start here; from a wave that has to brake, crush and whip the lost plank. All the painter has to do than is to find it. (...)

Icon is like the plank created by the sea. If it is wide and smooth - Christ the pantocrator will be on it. If it is hard and smooth - John the Baptist will be on it. If it is broken down, whipped, scarred, red of blood almost black Golgotha will be on it.

"WRÓŻKA" /Nr 1. 2004/,
www.wrozka.com.pl
autor: Grzegorz Kapla