Radek Muniak

Lives and works in Mexico City, CDMX, Mexico

Artist statement

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, to trace is to form figures carefully or painstakingly by following in detail, step by step the lines. For the Cibecue Apache the past is figured as a path or trail (‘intin) trodden by ancestors but invisible to the living. It has to be re-approached indirectly via the prompts of certain memorial traces, which include place names, stories, songs and relics. The Apache call these traces ‘footprints’, or ‘tracks’ (biké’ goz’áá), because tracing means to discover by going backwards. While for the Thcho people of north-western Canada, walking and knowing are barely divisible activities: their term for ‘knowledge' and ‘footprint’ are used interchangeably. Similar to the Tibetan word shul which means ‘a mark that remains after that which has made it has passed by’. Footprints are shul, a path is shul, travel is shul and a painting is shul. I paint mandalas, and as such - I trace the world. As a child I loved to draw houses. Strange structures that defied gravity, practicality and common sense. I wanted to be an architect, so these weren’t your average two-dimensional children doodles, but complex designs made with rulers, drafting triangles and compasses. I was a professional, or at least as much of a professional as a ten year old with no understanding of geometric principles can be. Rarely were my projects made for actual people; they were homes, but uninhabitable ones, made not to be lived in but through. I was a lonely child,...

Artwork