2010
installation

Grzegorz Pieniak’s installation is a structure the artist built fifteen years ago in a forest together with his friends. In May this year, Pieniak relocated The House in the Dark Forest to a gallery space, giving the work a new context. Now, by placing the installation in a park in the Aniołki district, he continues this process of reinterpretation: the work is no longer a child’s hideout, but a symbol of life’s challenges in the provinces, of growing up, and of coping with a difficult childhood and addiction.

The notion of home carries profound symbolic and social meaning. For everyone, it should represent a safe space filled with love and familial warmth. When faced with hardship, conflict or violence in childhood, we instinctively seek stability and escape. The artist found such refuge in The House in the Dark Forest, which he built near his home. It was an intuitive act – the need to survive triggered a defence mechanism, leading Pieniak to create a place he could retreat to in moments of distress.

Now, fifteen years on, the work has become a mature interpretation of childhood experience and a deep act of self-reflection. What was once a spontaneous gesture has evolved into a symbol of escape, the search for safety and solitude. The Aniołki district, abundant in greenery, offers a setting where nature becomes a metaphor for refuge and memory. Relocating the wooden house to the local park is a symbolic gesture addressed to all those who struggle with their difficult past and family trauma.

GRZEGORZ PIENIAK is a painter and a graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Together with artists Piotr Wesołowski, Agata Słowak and Szaweł Płóciennik, he co-founded the Open Experiment Studio and the Kaplica Gallery. In his work, he examines masculinity by ‘distorting its extreme, binary representations’. He frequently employs artistic techniques rooted in the past. Pieniak has presented his works in solo and group exhibitions, and his paintings are held in numerous private collections. He lives and works in Warsaw.