For the inaugural START art fair at the Saatchi Gallery, London from 26 – 29 June 2014 Division of Labour and Eastside Projects show a joint presentation of new work with an Eastern European focus.
Polish artist Rafal Zar’s paintings wield a cartoonlike dark humour. Themes of religion, sexuality, race, violence, oppression and unrequited love constantly loop in his work. Queer characters (priests, Madonnas, water melons, bunnies, pigs, donkeys, turds and butt plugs) perform picaresque journeys through landscapes, often empty except for an abstracted horizon line. Taking the position of the outsider Zar combines religious, natural, scatological and sexual imagery in joyously bleak paintings.
