2025
stained glass

In this work, Rybkowski reflects on the idea of trauma and its lingering consequences. A cracked pane of glass depicting the sky becomes a record of a destructive event – its fracture the defining mark.

Although the title poses a question, the artist does not seek an answer. The crack becomes a symbol of trauma – an intense psychological and emotional reaction to a sudden and overwhelmingly stressful event. The causes and meanings of trauma differ for each of us. According to Paul D. MacLean’s triune brain theory, every human being operates through three modes that can be symbolically linked to three colours: red, blue and green. These correspond to emotion, behaviour and stress response, also in the context of trauma. We function through three systems – emotional, rational and regulatory – and trauma can distort their balance, shaping our reactions. Depending on our predisposition, we may respond with anger or withdrawal.

Rybkowski’s work focuses on repair, healing and the scarring-over of a traumatic event. Such an experience is destabilising, yet the fractured form of the glass, reassembled through the stained-glass technique, becomes its record. Rather than concealing difficult experiences, the artist transforms their aftermath into an ornament. The crack may thus become a symbol of breakthrough or transformation after hardship – a mark of process as much as of pain.

FILIP RYBKOWSKI is a visual artist and a graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. His practice employs a critical act of reconstruction combined with reflection on the political character of gestures of restoration, reproduction and conservation. Rybkowski’s works transcend the traditional boundaries of painting, entering the fields of mosaic, objet trouvé and installation. He is interested in the problematic status of authenticity and in the processes of the historical construction of memory. The artist draws attention to systems of order and norms, and to their regulation as mechanisms of power that enable the shaping and manipulation of the collective, social and political body.