oil, canvas / 100 x 110 cm
Signature p.d.: 'ZB. Kowalski'
inventory number: UK/27/12/2019/a
ORIGIN:
creator
Zbigniew Andrzej Kowalski,
born. 1960, graduate of the University of Silesia, Cieszyn branch, Faculty of Pedagogy and Art, painting in the studio of Professor Alfred Biedrawa. From 1983 to 1996 teacher of drawing at the CZSP School Complex and High School in Maków Podhalański. From 1996 to 2007 Director of the Center for Culture, Promotion, Tourism and Sports in Maków Podhalański. Currently an employee (senior instructor) of the MBP Dom Kultury, leading the art studio and the "Babiogórzanie Polana Makowska" Regional Group.
In addition to group exhibitions, while still a student, the works were presented, among others, in Czestochowa, Stary Sącz, Sucha Beskidzka - "Castle Gallery", in Węgierska Górka, in the Gallery of the Oświęcim Cultural Center, in Jordanów - "Pod Basztą" Gallery, in Zakliczyn - "Poddasze Gallery" (individual exhibitions). Collective exhibitions, are mainly "community" or after-air exhibitions. He also participated in group exhibitions in Austria, Slovakia and Canada, where several of his works now remain in private collections. Unfortunately, he never kept a "chronicle" of his activity, and memory is fleeting, so it will be difficult to reconstruct all the events related to his creative work, but nevertheless a little more information can be provided by excerpts from reviews and opinions about the works presented at exhibitions, and what he says with some reluctance about himself and what he paints.
What can I say about myself? Param I primarily do easel painting, I love the smell of turpentine combined with oils, so I mainly use oil paints. ... do not believe when someone says that he paints or writes poems "for himself". - not true, we always hope to be noticed, but the point is not always that our work arouses admiration, the most important thing is that it should not remain unnoticed, indifferent. My works are very personal, they are the result of my experiences, memories, dreams. Very often the creative impulse is music evoking images, associations, evoking emotions that are difficult to define. Therefore, in my paintings appear quite real characters in situations detached from reality, closer to the realm of dreams.
"To reconcile fire and water - it is not easy, and yet this art has succeeded Zbyszek Kowalski, an artist in many respects - unique. Zbyszek's painterly compositions are characterized by an interesting bipolarity: warm colors are almost always complemented by cool tones, softly laid planes intermingle with sharply drawn lines, lyrical themes contrast with the dynamics of plastic arrangements, poetic realism struggles with almost abstract forms.... A discerning observer will also inevitably notice the unorthodoxy of the very material structure of the painting, in which parts emanating matter "density" and almost "raw", barely touched with pigment surfaces of the canvas primed with pure whites exist side by side. Conscious, thoughtful treatment of the unreal, through free - and consistent - juggling of painterly effects, takes one into the world of poetry, where not everything has to be depicted bluntly. The paintings are even closer to music - flowing in its own stream and at its own pace, sometimes accelerating (even the heartbeat), slowing down, entwining both earth and sky, having its own color, tones, arrangements, melodic lines or sound....
It is not difficult to find in the paintings the essential message, the center of which is man. Man as Woman, man as Man, man as a being created - like a bird - for freedom, for love, for beauty. Man searching for himself in a world full of turmoil.... Zbyszek Kowalski's works are exceptionally authentic, original, fresh. They intrigue. They are elemental, based on the sensations of earth, water, air, fire. They have a peculiar heat and ripple - in human interiors - like the sea..."
Janusz Motylski, painter, member of ZPAP - Karpacz, Wroclaw
