My name is Grzegorz Rombel. I deal with painting, photography and drawing. I won’t write much about myself here. In fact, I don’t think I can even do it and I don’t like doing it. What would be the point of writing here about my studies, when and where I was born, what exhibitions I had and in what collections and where in the world my paintings are…? In my opinion, this is pure absurdity. I once said certain words and they are still valid for me and I think they will remain so until the end, that my paintings and my work should talk about me, but not me. So let the creativity speak for itself.
Interview with the author /fragments/
Horace left behind poems, so “he did not die whole”. Does Grzegorz Rombel want to build his immortality with images?
“Non Omnis Moriar”… This sentence is very close to me. It is even the title of one of my works. However, what is immortality in my understanding..? Do we become immortal by leaving the work of our hands and minds here on Earth..? It seems to me that our life on this beautiful planet is just one of the stages. A certain process on the way to knowing ourselves and on the way to eternity. Eternity, in turn, is a constant journey. Perhaps in other dimensions and states of consciousness. However, if someone asks me if I believe in God and if all this does not conflict with each other, I will answer – yes, I believe that there is a force of creation of this world, which we conventionally call God. And this energy, a part of it, is contained in each of us. It is immortal. It is our eternity. Our Paradise or Our Damnation
“Dubito ergo sum” (I doubt therefore I am) was Descartes’s brief statement. What does Gregory doubt?
I doubt many things… Certainly that peace will reign on earth and that people will stop killing each other. I doubt that they will stop fighting wars and will stop committing other crimes and atrocities against each other and the nature around us.
I doubt… because as a species we have competition written into our code. In our being. However, competition is fundamentally written into life. In every form of existence. In the animal world it also takes place, and weaker species are devoured by the stronger ones. In the plant world it also exists. Maybe we live in a reality full of total madness…? If it were otherwise, would such terrible things as the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki be possible…? Atrocious cases of genocide on all continents…? Perhaps through our struggle with our own nature we want to save ourselves from this madness. Through love for our loved ones. Through love for animals, for nature. And yet this wild, crazy, possessed world exists. And I doubt… I doubt that it could ever be different.
interviewed by: Janusz Bysina