Sam sobie wybiorę, na którym prześlę usiądę [I’ll Choose Which Chair I Sit On]
Jakub Sobczyński

[I’ll Choose Which Chair I Sit On] 

What makes us linger on something seemingly insignificant? Why can an ordinary pile of oranges on a kitchen counter, the casually captured silhouette of a friend, or a moment of idleness on a beach remain in our memory for years?

The painting of Jakub Sobczyński emerges precisely from such questions.

The artist does not seek extraordinary subjects. He is not interested in grand narratives, spectacular events, or images that strive at all costs to comment on reality. Instead, his point of departure is everyday life—the world closest at hand, observed with attentiveness and patience. Sobczyński photographs moments that capture his attention: the arrangement of objects left on a table, conversations among friends, light entering a domestic interior, a crowd of people, or a chance scene encountered in passing. These collected photographs form a private archive—a contemporary diary recorded not in words, but in images.

Yet this is only the beginning of the process.

For Sobczyński, photography is not an end in itself, but a tool. In painting, the recorded reality undergoes transformation. He does not reproduce the world—he investigates it. What interests him is the way we see: how light alters color, how form dissolves into fields of pigment, and how rhythms, structures, and abstract arrangements reveal themselves within the apparent chaos of everyday life.

This is why color remains the central protagonist of his paintings.

Color organizes space, creates tension, and guides the narrative. In this sense, Sobczyński consciously enters into dialogue with the traditions of Polish Colorism and Post-Impressionist painting. Yet he does not treat these references as a historical costume. Rather, they serve as living points of reference for a contemporary way of seeing—one that continues to believe in the autonomy of the image and the power of visual experience.

His canvases feature loved ones, friends, family interiors, holiday journeys, and everyday situations. These are not, however, portraits of specific individuals or documentation of particular events. They are paintings about the act of looking itself—about the fact that reality constantly escapes definitive definitions and that every moment can be seen anew.

A subtle element of observation is also present throughout Sobczyński’s work. The viewer is granted access to a world of private gestures and everyday rituals. Yet there is neither sentimentality nor voyeurism in this approach. Instead, there is a conviction that within the ordinary lies the most universal of human experiences.

At a time when an ever-growing proportion of images are produced digitally and visual culture has become an endless stream of data, Sobczyński reminds us of something fundamental: the experience of seeing itself. His painting does not compete with photography or technology. Rather, it poses a more essential question: what do we actually see when we look?

The exhibition title, I’ll Choose Which Chair to Sit On Myself, is borrowed from the song Artysta z ASP by the band Kacperczyk. In the context of the works presented, it becomes a declaration of independence and a conscious shaping of one’s own artistic path. It is the voice of an artist of a younger generation who, while remaining an attentive observer of reality, has developed a consistent and distinctive painterly language.

Jakub Sobczyński’s exhibition is not about extraordinary things. It is about a world we all know. Yet it suggests that perhaps we do not look at it closely enough. It offers an encounter with painting that seeks not spectacle, but intensity of vision.

Krzysztofa Kornacka