Since 1962 Konrad Jarodzki’s paintings have been presented at exhibitions in Wrocław and nationwide, and their reproductions were the pride of magazines distributed not only in the country, but also abroad. However, except for those who visit the painter's studios, only few are familiar with his creative path. Several years have passed since the first individual exhibition of the artist's works, and the canvases viewed at collective exhibitions presented only currently solved artistic problems. However, it is possible to see the value of the way of thinking, the concept and the main idea of the entire artistic activity only when there is comparison betweencompositions from different periods. Such kind of confrontation reveals fluctuations, artistic anxiety or great consistency in realising painting program.

Two years ago the Museum of Current Art [Muzeum Sztuki Aktualnej] organised a retrospective exhibition of Konrad Jarodzki. This event showed the consistent development of the artistic path, the beginning of which was marked by compact structures, and the end – by completely broken ones. The destruction of forms was then the result of the internal variety of components. The matter penetrated from the inside disintegrated into many parts and circulated randomly on the surface of the canvas.

I wrote about Konrad Jarodzki's artistic work for the first time in 1967, and for the second time in 1969. Both texts referred to his individual exhibitions, although one of them concerned a retrospective exhibition while the other was related to the presentation of several dozen drawings. The first of these exhibitions closed the five-year period of the artist's activity, the next one opened a completely new stage. During this period the artist created a few paintings with features similar to the initial phase of his creativity, but there was none among them that would herald a different issue. Jarodzki made the before-mentioned drawings within several weeks and he immediately decided to display them.

Konrad Jarodzki is a traditional painter, meaning that he is faithful to the painting plane and technique which applies primarily paint and a paintbrush, though he is no stranger to other means of expression. He is the one who implemented the concept of the border between land art and intervention into the existing reality hanging a tape over a gorge blinding against a dark sky. In this activity, he maintained faithful to his basic assumptions – not formal – as ultimately the form of every good work is only a way of expressing certain content. The tape did in fact differ significantly from his paintings recently displayed in Zielona Góra and Wrocław. It is connected with them, however, by something else something important: a climate of unrest and certain paradox.

Konrad Jarodzki’s recent series of works focus on the problem of matter penetrating space. In this case, the artist’s method approaches that of a scientist, taking as a departure point something concrete, at least partially analysed, and referring to the current state of knowledge in order to venture into new territory and explore it. To him, matter, as an element relatively familiar and accessible, that is real, becomes an instrument employed to penetrate space, a non-reality still strange and largely unexplored. His method is informed by man’s eternal cognitive urge to penetrate through the mysteries of the universe and grasp the underlying principles of nature. At this point, the question arises about the need and possibility of such cognition.

In 1963 Konrad Jarodzki chooses the first motif of his works and determines its artistic form. The image of heads is the motif and graphic planes of a uniform or opposite colour constitute the form. On the neutral surface of the canvas, they create a simple structure with a predominance of verticals and horizontals. The rhythmic arrangement is sometimes enlivened by curved lines that divide larger fields into a series of parts. In this way, the form of a head is reduced to a painterly ideogram – it is a pretext, an artistic sign with its own content, independent of the original.

Virtually in every artist's works, one may distinguish a period of crystallization of their individual style. In the case of Konrad Jarodzki, such a period occurred in the years 1963-1970. Without being excessively judgemental about the works which were created at that time, their unquestionable significance should be stressed in the process of examining slowly growing experiences, all of which together enable the artist to create the proper work of art.

In 1963 Konrad Jarodzki selects the first motif of his works and defines its artistic form. The image of a head constitutes the motif and graphic planes of uniform or opposing colours are the form. On the neutral surface of the canvas, they create a simple structure with a predominance of verticals and horizontals. The rhythmic arrangement is sometimes enlivened by curved lines that divide larger fields into a series of parts. In this way, the form of a head is reduced to a painterly ideogram. In the years 1963-1964 it is represented in a geometric form in the artist’s paintings.

Among the artists whose artistic works developed within the circle of Wrocław School (1961-1967) and Wrocław Group (1967-1976) Konrad Jarodzki – an architect and painter – is one of the most important. He is less often referred to in the secondary literature than, for instance, Józef Hałas and Alfons Mazurkiewicz who work out spectacular, painting structures or Jan Chwałczyk, Wanda Gołkowska, Jerzy Rosołowicz, Zdzisław Jurkiewicz who enter into the sphere of concept art.

Konrad Jarodzki is one of the most important figures in the post-war history of the Wrocław university of fine arts. On the one hand, this fact stems from the significance of his artistic achievements, and on the other hand – from the multidirectional impact he exerted on the shape and identity of the university, with which he was associated for many decades.