Make an offer
Wincenty Czwartos – Holes in the sky, 2024
Holes in the sky by Wincenty Czwartos is an intimate oil painting from 2024 that condenses one of the most recognisable motifs in the artist’s work. Here, Czwartos abandons extended figurative narration and focuses instead on rhythm, sign and the symbolic violation of an ordered surface. The result is a formally restrained yet highly charged painting.
The composition is based on a horizontal division of the background into a pale upper zone and a red-and-white lower field, evoking associations with national colour and the materiality of a flag. This is not, however, a realistic depiction or a literal illustration of a state symbol. Czwartos works through allusion: he transforms the colour field into a space of tension, in which a collective sign is exposed to violence.
The most important elements of the painting are the black, star-like forms scattered across the surface of the canvas. Their sharp, aggressive shapes resemble explosions, fragments, ruptures, projectiles and abstract bird-like silhouettes at the same time. Unlike in the artist’s larger compositions, where similar motifs may function as ravens, crows or elements of mourning iconography, here they gain full autonomy. They become signs of destruction — black wounds inflicted upon the image.
The title Holes in the sky may be understood as a metaphor for damage done to symbolic order. The black forms do not merely appear against the background; they seem to pierce the surface of the composition. They are not decoration, but an act of violation: a visual record of an attack on a space that should remain intact. The painting speaks of a moment in which the horizon of community is torn open by an anonymous, dark force.
The red-and-white field, with its soft, undulating tonal transitions, introduces a sense of movement and instability. Colour does not form a calm surface here, but resembles a trembling, disturbed fabric. Against this background, the black modules act like brutal cuts that interrupt the continuity of both image and symbol. The tension arises between the fluidity of the painterly surface and the uncompromising sharpness of the black sign.
Holes in the sky is an emblematic work. Wincenty Czwartos transforms motifs known from his larger compositions into an almost abstract image of contemporary crisis. The painting speaks of the disruption of order, wounds inflicted upon symbols and a world in which collective signs lose their integrity. Despite its modest format, the work has strong visual impact and clear collector appeal.
Wincenty Czwartos
Holes in the sky, 2024
Technique: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 48 × 40 cm
Category: painting
Art movement: figurative art
