Images appeared in history as a vehicle for narrative long before the invention of writing. Signs carved in stone, paintings, or cave representations preserved to this day constituted a form of passing knowledge and history down through generations. Today, we perceive engaging with art primarily as a visual and aesthetic experience. Meanwhile, from the very beginning, art was also a tool of communication: a record of history, a testament to memory, a carrier of ideas, fears, or personal experiences.
The work of Ryszard Rabsztyn reminds us of this primal function. It shows that an artwork is not merely an object of visual experience, but also a material record of information. The Braille and Morse alphabets – systems created to transcend the limitations of perception and distance – become in his works both a tool and the language of artistic expression. We are therefore not merely engaging with an abstract composition; we stand before concrete content. What is a legible system of signs for one group of viewers remains for most merely an arrangement of forms creating the rhythm and structure of the painting. A fascination with hieroglyphs, ciphers, and other methods of notation became one of the directions of the artist’s exploration and defined the character of his creative practice.
The foundation of the Braille alphabet is a cell composed of six dots, allowing for the creation of 64 different combinations. The artist utilizes this language not only as a communication tool but also as a metaphor for cognition. It becomes a medium of reflection on the possibility of perceiving art not only through sight but also through other forms of understanding. In the exhibition Painted Syntax, we deal with a message that is particularly intimate and not fully accessible. Information is encoded, and its meaning does not reveal itself immediately. The works presented in the exhibition thus function on two levels. The first is the visual level, based on rhythm, color, harmony, and the repetition of signs. The second constitutes the semantic layer: text, an encoded thought, or a personal message.
For the artist, spirituality remains an essential domain. His practice takes the form of continuous meditation, a private journal, and a transcription of religious texts important to him – fragments of the Bible, psalms, hymns, and prayers. We will not find traditional iconography or literal depictions of biblical scenes here. Present, however, is a reflection on the meaning of existence and man’s relationship with the invisible. In the philosophy of religion, faith is often defined as trust in the transcendent, a conviction that requires no direct proof. The connection between the Braille code and such an understanding of faith reveals itself in a particularly interesting way. Both rely on the act of reading what remains unseen. Every sign present in the painting carries meaning, and the applied coding systems become a tool for transcending empirical experiences and the limitations of perception.
The process of tracing the raised dots of the Braille alphabet or listening to the rhythmic signals of the Morse code acquires a metaphorical dimension. It symbolizes the ability to perceive and interpret signs present in reality, which reveal themselves not through direct observation, but through intuition, mindfulness, and inner awareness. In this sense, the artist’s works pose a question about the very nature of cognition: about how we read the world, how we assign meaning to signs, and how we attempt to grasp that which remains invisible.