about
our vulnerability
moments of uneasiness
searching for... what really?
erring in the chaos
between laughter and tears
the sign and the signification
small lifes that soon will be
gone and forgotten
Artist's statement
My name is Krzysztof Szczurek but recently I started using a simplified alias: Chris Tof because I was feeling more and more sorry for people constantly stumbling over the many consonants in my Polish name, impossible to remember. A linguist by profession, I'm a self-taught photographer, learning by doing, failing and always trying to explore new territories. After several years of searching urban streets for interesting motives I turned to a more intimate space of staged photography (mise-en-scene), drawing inspiration from Old Masters' painting and re-interpreting motives that have become inextricable part of our cultural DNA.
I do photography out of inner need. It's my emotional language without words. With my works I would like to touch the viewer, leave a trace, make them going back to the image like to a nightly dream barely remembered, difficult to understand, but still being there like an unresolved mystery.
My inspirations are Italian, Flemish and Dutch Old Masters, and in contemporary photography: George Crewdson and Erwin Olaf.
I attended one photo stage in Arles/France in 2014, participated in a couple of smaller group exhibitions and had one solo in 2015 in Brussels. In my professional environment I started a photo project focusing on the countries of presidency in the Council of the EU - so far I've organised and curated 12 exhibitions. I was selected for Accessible Art Fair in Brussels/BOZAR 2018 and 2019 and for the Art Truc Troc BOZAR 2019.