Rafal Dominik

What is ‘bad taste’?

Rafal Dominik’s practice has been evolving since his childhood, where his upbringing played out in stark contrast to the surrounding feast of pop culture. Raised in a family of artists, he describes watching a Van Damme action movie as “an enlightening experience of tasting the forbidden fruit.” This collision is evocative of the artist’s practice as a whole. Dominik seeks to re-animate the cracks in cultural memory to leveling the playing field between what is considered ‘high art’ and that which is underrepresented in culture today. The uncanny and unconventional form a vital part of the mindset of his generation, whose imaginations absorbed stories and ideas between the mid-80s through the 90s. For Dominik, this is emblematized by a WWF wrestling figurine, a gift in childhood – The Ultimate Warrior – the very pinnacle of outlandish beauty and power. Dominik’s works present a new portal through which to enter and participate in culture, where hierarchies of taste are disrupted to reveal a more telling picture of contemporary society, one driven by mass-market enterprises. His lens is epitomized by the contemporary rediscovery of Disco Polo – a music genre and scene originating in Dominik’s native country Poland. A part of the Polish memory and yet shunned for its raucous kitsch, Dominik’s practice is redistributing the cultural capital from the past and upturning it into the superhuman future. He is moved by the unconventional beauty he identifies.

Delighting in kitsch and overturning historical imagination

From his early interest in the products of mass culture, Dominik has turned his attention to the people on whom the content makes its impression. His eye is fixed on new pop culture with fresh heroes, legends and tropes. His practice draws no hierarchy between putting pen to paper and coding ones and zeroes – through both, he renders this new reality. Delighting in kitsch and overturning historical imagination, Dominik makes relics of the contemporary and transposes ancient canons using technological mediation. Something so innocuous as the scene depicted in his ‘Stupid Person Explains Something to a Smart Person”, that presents a clash of grotesque modernity, he has naturally engraved in sandstone, the oldest known medium of representational art.

Many of Dominik’s works find themselves in dialogue with figures from a by-gone era, transformed into the hidden heroes of the future. Paul Walker, star of ‘The Fast and the Furious’ franchise is memorialized as a figure who fell victim to the haunting fate of his franchise name with his untimely death in a high-speed car crash. Dominik has dressed him in a T-Shirt emblazoned with the word “Pioneer”, a nod to the increasingly blurred memory of Paul Walker versus his movie character and his superhuman memorialization.

Dominik repositions tropes and icons from mass culture and turns his audience to consider them under a new spotlight, in a new medium, disrupting the narrative of our cultural trajectory. In an age where we feel on the cusp of the superhuman, Dominik lures the hero out from somewhere quite unexpected, perhaps the Disco Polo revival.

Text by Constance Chester

I was always interested in what was "in the shadow" or "not on the map" or widely regarded as bad taste. I think these cracks in reality are the most interesting for me, whether it’s unconventional beauty, conspiracy theories, or paranormal events.

Rafal Dominik

Biography Rafal Dominik

born 1985 in Warsaw, Poland

Education

2004 - 2009 Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw,Poland / Painting

Exhibitions (selection)

2020
Warsaw Under Construction vol.12, MoMA Warsaw, Poland
My Enchanted World, Leto Gallery, Warsaw, Poland (SOLO)
Crack Up –Crack Down, CSW u-jazdowski, Warsaw, Poland

2019
Modern Talking, PGS, Sopot, Poland (duo show)

2018
Gravediggers, ZARYA CCA, Vladivostok, Russia
Waiting For Another Coming, CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania

2016
Just What Is It, Collection #3, Chamber Gallery, New York, United States
After Humans, Before Robots, Kasia Michalski Gallery, Warsaw, Poland (SOLO)
Black Mesa, Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok, Poland (SOLO)

2015
Art In Our Age, Zachęta National Gallery, Warsaw, Poland (as a co-curator)

2014
Razzle Dazzle, Gallery WM, Amsterdam, Holland

Selected Biography

Waiting For Another Coming, CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania, 2018
After Humans, Before Robots, Kasia Michalski Gallery, Warsaw, Poland, 2016

Works by Rafal Dominik

Tree of Happiness

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in
Yoga Clouds

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in
Sad Mountains

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in
Time Mountain

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 30 x 40 cm / 11.8 x 15.7 in
Mutant Rodent

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 30 x 40 cm / 11.8 x 15.7 in
Anonymous Cunnilingus

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in
Looted

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in
At The Source of Mutagen

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in
Archaeologist (normal or NSFW)

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in
Shokan

2022 / Pigment print on paper / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in
Clip End

2020 / Pen on canvas / 38.6 x 31.4 cm / 15.2 x 12.4 in (framed)
Cloverfield Paradox

2018 / Pen on paper / 23.3 x 30.6 cm / 9.2 x 12.0 in (framed)
((( Deep Stress )))

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 31.4 x 31.4 cm / 12.4 x 12.4 in (framed)
Firma Bielski (Bielski Company)

2018 / Pen on paper / 23.3 x 30.6 cm / 9.2 x 12.0 in (framed)
Girls In Front Of A Shop

2017 / Pen on paper / 35.6 x 44.2 cm / 14.0 x 17.4 in (framed)
Gorylica

2020 / Pen, marker on paper / 56.5 x 44.3 cm / 22.2 x 17.4 in (framed)
Group

2021 / Lambda print, disband, plexiglass / 100 x 130 cm / 39.4 x 51.2 in
Hobby

2018 / Pen on paper / 35.6 x 44.2 cm / 14.0 x 17.4 in (framed)
Hommage a Paul Walker

2018 / Pen on paper / 38.6 x 31.4 cm / 15.2 x 12.4 in (framed)
Influential Alien

2018 / Pen on paper / 34.8 x 27.3 cm / 13.7 x 10.7 in (framed)
iPad

2018 / Pen on paper / 30.1 x 22.9 cm / 11.9 x 9.0 in (framed)
Leciuteńki dotyk

2020 / Pen on paper / 38.6 x 31.4 cm / 15.2 x 12.4 in (framed)
Man Walking Through Waves

2018 / Pen on paper / 23.3 x 30.6 cm / 9.2 x 12.0 in (framed)
Miki and Ada

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 30.8 x 22.9 cm / 12.1 x 9.0 in (framed)
Niedzielna biesiada z Radiem 7 (Sunday Party With Radio 7)

2021 / Lambda print, dibond, plexiglass / 90 x 180 cm / 35.4 x 70.9 in
Portrait Of A Typical Human Shapeshifter, While Shapeshifting

2019 / Painted steel / 160 x 50 cm / 63.0 x 19.7 in
Secret

2020 / Pen, marker on paper / 56.5 x 44.3 cm / 22.2 x 17.4 in (framed)
Shields Of Steel

2021 / Lambda print, dibond, plexiglass / 110 x 94 cm / 43.3 x 37.0 in
Shy

2020 / Pen, marker on paper / 56.5 x 44.3 cm / 22.2 x 17.4 in (framed)
Starodawne Komnaty z Kulami odnalezione pod Rypinem (Ancient Chambers Of Spheres, Discovered Under Rypin City)

2018 / Pen on paper / 38.6 x 31.4 cm / 15.2 x 12.4 in (framed)
Stupid Person Explains Something To A Smart Person

2017 / Sandstone / 35 x 55 cm / 13.8 x 21.7 in
Stykam palce, ładuję Mane (I touch my fingers, Charging Mana)

2020 / Pen on paper / 29.9 x 22.8 cm / 11.8 x 9.0 in (framed)
Wiara w VRa (Hope in VR)

2017 / Acrylic, airbrush on canvas / 100 x 150 cm / 39.4 x 59.1 in
Zakręcona (Crazy)

2020 / Pen on paper / 31.2 x 22.7 cm / 12.3 x 8.9 in (framed)
Maksio Myśli

2020 / Lambda print, dibond, plexiglass / 87 x 100 cm / 34.3 x 39.4 in
Takayuki Yagami

2021 / Pigment print on paper / 45.6 x 37 cm / 18.0 x 14.6 in (framed)
Myszuna

2021 / Lambda print, dibond, plexiglass / 120 x 110 cm / 47.2 x 43.3 in

Discover all artists of Slavs and Tatars’ selection

Rafal Dominik is part of the selection of artists which Slavs and Tatars curated for our platform. The art collective has selected a total of four artists, which we present online.