I only saw Piotr Kusch's works in Laski as I stayed there when organizing an exhibition about angels. It was a profound experience for me.

The first thing I did was touch these sculptures. They are such that you need to touch them. They are made differently than ordinary sculpture. I am not a sculptor myself, but it seems to me that a sculptor working with a material thinks about the form; about how to define lines and directions in that form, which will be viewed from the outside. At the same time, they must think about how this form exists in space. What will be the relationship between this form and the form of the space it fills? Usual sculptures are diverse. Piotr’s works show two edges: the edge of the stone and the edge of the air. These empty spaces are sometimes openwork. The stones have various fragments and spaces released. Together, they create a much larger sculpture than just what we experience by moving our hand along the edge of the stone. All of Piotr’s stones are pastel: pink, celery green, blue. They create abstract forms. They do not depict anything specific. They do not even refer to any conventional forms found in nature. However, their character reveals a very organic, biological world.

In the case of Piotr's work, there is also an extraordinary phenomenon. His sculptures encourage incredible patience — patience in observing and interacting with them. They are transmitters of the patience that Piotr possesses, which allows him to penetrate the nature of stone so profoundly. At the same time, it allows for the revelation of an additional presence in the stone. These released spaces in the stone are precisely Piotr’s angels.

When we move our hand over the stone, we touch both the external world, i.e., the plane of the stone wall, as well as the second wall — the wall of air, something that is not there, and that is precisely Piotr’s angel. He has found it for himself and for all of us. [1995]

Piotr Kusch's "Signs of Holiness" are inscribed in the empty space of the gallery. The presentation of the artist’s recent works includes wood sculptures and ceramics. Wood and clay are materials in which Piotr Kusch finds and records what is most important in his world and what also defines the place where he lives, Laski.

The "Signs of Holiness," born from the experience of the language of touch, refer to the beauty and simplicity preserved in the architecture of the Laski Chapel.

Interpreting these works — these signs — requires the viewer to pause, perhaps even close their eyes and trust their watching fingers. Touch can bring us closer to the mystery of Christmas, the Way of the Cross, or Pentecost, as Piotr Kusch shows. It only requires a certain reverent focus, an outstretched hand, bending down, or even kneeling, and slowly moving from one station of the Cross to the next, as in adoration of the cross after the Good Friday service. All this is to truly see and not be a skeptic, but a believer. [2005]

Clay is humble. It yields under the artist's fingers, allowing itself to be shaped without resistance.

Clay teaches the artist humility, respect for its nature, and responsibility for every touch of the fingers that leaves a mark. Everything can still be improved, changed, perfected.

Clay patiently submits, remaining silent. Everything can be started anew. Once more. And again.

Through the touch of his hands, the artist breathes life into the clay, extracting it from formlessness, calling it to a new way of existence, and giving it a name. The outline of a head and a horizontal beam cautiously emerges from the background, slowly moving forward, falling, rising, and falling again. It encounters other heads and then stops. It ascends with the cry of sharp thorns, finally finding rest at the very bottom of the rough abyss. And a strangely twisted shape around the head. Yes, it is a lamb. Passover.

Here is the final shape. The clay no longer feels the warmth of familiar fingers. It enters the pain of the burning fire. The flame does not destroy but solidifies. After passing through the fire the clay is no longer yielding. It becomes hard and brittle at once. Durable yet fragile, like everything on this earth.

Now, the fired, spiritualized clay awaits with impatience the gentle touch of new hands to imprint its mark. Through these hands, it seeks to awaken the spirit. To pass on the fire it contains. [2005]

I will just allow myself to express a theological reflection: Piotr carves in stone, wood, and clay. And perhaps it is the clay sculpture that is the most biblical, for in the end, the Lord God formed us from clay, and sculpting in clay is akin to "creatio continua"; it is what God has given us as a calling in the broadest sense of the word—a calling to fully understood creativity. The calling from dead clay sculpture, forming vessels—which by their very shape and function indicate that they are not for themselves but to contain something and thus serve—is particularly moving. Here, some anthropological intuition about sculpture in general, and Piotr’s sculpture in particular, is most revealed because vessels are a very frequent subject in the artist’s work.

I have never spoken about this before—but I think this exhibition is an opportunity to express, with great gratitude, Piotr, that what you create transcends the artistic dimension and delves deeply into the human experience of existence, which itself is a clay vessel formed by God to contain a treasure. I am fortunate to very often—three, even sometimes four times a week—celebrate Holy Mass in my chapel using the chalice and paten that you gave me for my episcopal ordination; the chalice is like the vessels you can see here, with its dark blue interior… No sculpture can receive a greater honor than to hold the bread and wine that become the body and blood of our Lord. [2023]

Piotr Kusch’s sculptural work is artistically mature, autonomous contemporary sculpture, sensitive to the beauty of form. However, the artist is blind, and his art still faces the risk of being relegated to the realm of work by the disabled, treated under specific rules. It must be acknowledged that, up to a certain point, this was justified. The output from the early years of Piotr Kusch’s artistic activity, despite its undeniably high level, was within the bounds of sculpture created by the blind, with all the specific baggage of the desire to portray a world they imagine, to approach its charm, and to express their experiences through a typically figurative form, arising from the stance of “touching the world.” However, for several years now, the artist has been creating abstract works with exquisite formal charm, becoming a creator recognized and valued in the art world precisely as a sculptor whose works can be treated fully autonomously as contemporary sculpture [...].

As a sculptor, he works in granite, limestone, sandstone, and wood, using—driven by a great artistic intuition—the natural beauty and properties of the material. He enjoys realizing soft lines of sloping planes, intricate arrangements of curves, contrasts between convexity and plane, smooth, and sometimes very sharply differentiated sculptural surfaces. He often uses transparency and openwork, introducing air and space into his works in various ways. His sculptures live most fully in the appropriate context of the outdoors, air, light, and nature. They possess a natural biological quality that harmonizes well with what is purely abstract in the artist's art, meticulously calculated in the best sense of the word [...].

A particular value of Piotr Kusch’s work is his ability to draw artistic conclusions from his personal limitations, creatively developing this unique, given way of perceiving the world and simultaneously engaging with the material and form. Limitation has become an opportunity for more specific, individual expression. [1996]

For years, I have been closely following the work of Piotr Kusch, a blind sculptor who lives and works in Laski near Warsaw. He possesses genuine talent and great artistic sensitivity, and above all, creative awareness that boldly transcends the limitations of his personal condition. It is this awareness that sets him apart from what might be associated with the work of the blind. Years ago, I published an article about the artist in "Więź." What fascinates me most about Kusch's work is his conscious and sophisticated handling of pure sculptural form, placing him among sculptors who are not defined by adjectives.

It is no surprise, then, that the artist has received international scholarships, traveled extensively, and through touch, familiarized himself with a part of the leading achievements in global sculpture.

At one point, I was most fascinated by his abstract spatial compositions, arranged so that each side could be a main view. The refined interplay of smoothly intersecting planes and the space within the sculpture as an integral material of the work determined its value.

Currently, what enchants me most in his recent work is the bowls. Here, it is not about functional form but about pure artistic expression of their shape as autonomous works of art. Some of these bowls, left in raw clay, are decorated with an incredibly simple yet sophisticated method—throwing the still-hot bowl into grass or hay. The pattern formed from adhered, burnt blades is as simple and natural as nature itself, yet it is immensely refined—like great works of art. Looking at these bowls, I felt as though I had entered an exclusive gallery in Tokyo.

Piotr Kusch’s talent, revealed in his peak achievements, disproves the notion that limitations define the horizons of action.[2003]

Stone is an ancient element of matter—the most primordial of solidified and extinguished materials. It is a multifaceted symbol, including that of endurance and memory. The myth-creating function of stone has accompanied the entire history of humanity from primitive times to the present day. Stone contains and reflects the primordial structure of the world. It is indestructible, which makes it highly susceptible to symbolic artistic actions, especially those based on reflections about the structure and character of the material world. Stone is also a gravitational center, creating a field of action around itself. Spatial relationships are formed around it, finely sensed and imagined, symbolically represented in Piotr Kusch’s installation "Stone Galaxy" presented at the Gallery of Critics. The power of this realization lies in its symbolic impact.

Regardless of its function within the artistic composition, Piotr Kusch’s individual stones are extraordinarily beautiful and exquisite in their original, each time different forms. Looking at them, I admire the artist's creativity in giving them seemingly unexpected yet very organic shapes, in line with the visible action of the creator's hand. They represent a unique and concrete portrayal of the world's richness.

"Stone Galaxy" is the culmination of the artist’s extensive years of exploration in both figurative and abstract forms. Piotr Kusch, living and working in Laski, is not in a hermitage. He is surrounded by a very active intellectual environment where he finds partners for discussions about his interests, not just artistic ones. His passion is tracking contemporary astrophysical achievements and the construction of the Cosmos. His imagination encompasses the entire Universe and follows its mysteries. In this friendly environment, he had the opportunity to continuously showcase his work in the times when the "Wall" Gallery, run by the particularly art-sensitive director of the school team, Teresa Cwalina, was still here.

An important role in Piotr Kusch’s work has been played by his foreign trips, during which he explored, using the methods available to him, the global achievements of sculpture from ancient Egypt to Henry Moore. [2009]