THE WAY is Radek Szlaga’s critical look at culture, history, Polish myths and Western consumerism.  The very title means a process of reaching an aim, learning, and gaining new experience. It is the opposite of stagnation, rigidness and thoughtless persistence.

Since the beginning of his career, the artist has appeared a restless soul; a nomad eagerly searching among the variety of formal ways to express his peculiar sensitivity towards the outer world. Strong and fresh, his freestyle painting -- sometimes funny and sometimes ironically acrimonious – intelligently joins autobiographical plots, superstitions and the history of Poland with pop culture icons.

By blending elements of Polish folklore, street art, waste, mass media, and classical works, Szlaga’s oeuvre sensitizes the viewer’s reception of global cultural symbols, refreshing the faded and deformed meanings they contain. His paintings evoke worlds of knowledge, technology, superstitions, pop culture, myths and religions.

The exhibition is a part of the ‘Creative Geography – Mental Landscapes’ project, implemented by the MAREARTICUM Foundation within the ‘Identity. Creativity. Dialogue’ program that is co-financed by the City of Szczecin.  It is aimed at presenting critical artistic and intellectual approaches that uncover the mechanisms at work in the creation of identity and national foundation myths.