MICHAL
MARTYCHOWIEC

Destination

In the middle of the journey of our life
I came to myself within a dark wood
where the straight way was lost.
D.Alighieri

The series Destination: The Magic Mountain and Heavenly coppice were created in a place where I used to spend many summers as a child.

Years had passed and I had only vague memories of the place: a house surrounded by impenetrable swamps from one and a forest from the other side. If one managed to go through the forest, suddenly from the shade, a landscape of open fields, burned with the sun, would appear. In a distance: a lonely mountain. Or so was my memory. After many years, one winter I returned to that place, where the wavering mists of memory were forced to deal with the harshness of reality, to cope with a time interval, with the imprecision and vagueness that filter and distort every detail, and even with the irresistible force of desire and will, arranging and rearranging fragments of memory, according to expectations that gradually matured in me.

On the way towards the mountain “I came to myself within a dark wood”. I looked into the paintings, images of my memory, for the path, either the exit or the entrance. Still hesitant whether I should pursue the three golden hounds like the golden fleece?

Destination: The Magic Mountain, borrowing its name from Thomas Mann’s novel, is a series which records the journey towards the mountain, towards my own identity and the destination of my very own existence. The path is not straight and simple, midway upon the journey, a forest arouses, bringing before me the images of memory, history, and imagination. Desires and expectations, far beyond from what one would be led to think, do not just influence the future that is before us, but also the past behind us. Memories become so elusive, like glowing embers’ heat which we ignore as much as their indefatigable vitality.