Nick Modrzewski: Misbehaviour in the Age of Geometry

 

Misbehaviour in the Age of Geometry, interrogates systems of control—whether social, legal, architectural, or psychological— and the ways they act upon human, animal, and hybrid bodies.

At their core, Modrzewski’s paintings are deeply physical, material manifestations. Working primarily on linen laid flat, he employs a lexicon of painterly gestures that oscillate between intention and accident: paint is spilled, thrown, dragged, rubbed back, and massaged into the surface. This fluid, almost alchemical process is then countered by deliberate acts of inscription—historical citations and specific visual cues are drawn, painted, or carved into the textured terrain. Bureaucratic stamps, heraldic crests, aerial maps of prisons, medieval geometric instruments, and fractured architectural plans emerge and recede, embedded within layers of accumulated mark-making. These forms, suggestive of rational systems—geometry, governance, discipline—are persistently undermined, their authority destabilized through erasure, distortion, and overpainting.