Leon Tarasewicz, WITHOUT TITLE, 2020

100.00 x 100.00 cm - acrylic, canvas,signed on the reverse l.g.: L. Tarasewicz 2020 | Acrylic on canvas | 100 x 100
Leon Tarasewicz's painting is a mesmerizing study of color, light and rhythm, where intense red and juicy green create a strong, vibrating contrast. Tarasewicz operates with color not to represent reality, but to evoke a direct emotional and physical reaction in the viewer. The way he paints, with fine brushstrokes, makes the canvas "breathe" and seem to shimmer. Although the work is completely abstract, its structure - as in most of this artist's paintings - brings to mind an association with nature. Tarasewicz has been translating landscape into the language of pure painting form for years, combining the Byzantine tradition (along with the mystical meaning of color and light present in it) with Western modernism. His works often go beyond the canvas, annexing walls, floors and even public spaces. In the case of this particular work, despite being enclosed in a square format, the rhythmic nature of the stains suggests that the composition could go on forever.

Leon Tarasewicz (Station Waliły, Bialystok, 14 III 1957, lives in the village of Waliły and in Warsaw) studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1979 to 1984, graduating in the studio of Professor Tadeusz Dominik. Already during his studies he found his own way of depicting nature subjected to synthesis on the verge of abstraction. In the early period, his paintings were based on keenly observed motifs, such as cones of trees on mountain slopes seen from afar, the rhythm of tree trunks in the forest, flocks of birds soaring, stones. Since around 1988, the artist has moved beyond concrete object references to purely painterly values: color, play of values, texture. He creates abstract compositions of fields and streaks of color filling large-format paintings, as well as - more and more often - paintings on gallery walls (e.g. at Konsthall, Malmö 1992, at Foksal Gallery, Warsaw 1994, at the exhibition "Art against Nature", Zachęta Gallery, Warsaw 1996). With time, this type of przestrzee realizations in public places (although he also has a few private interior arrangements to his credit) became the main theme of his work. The apogee of this tendency came at the turn of the century, when the artist presented a colorful "floor" at the Venice Art Biennale in 2001 and a solo exhibition-installation at the Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw in 2003, conceived as a painting space into which the viewer can physically enter. Since the beginning of his career, the artist has enjoyed many successes, including market successes, at home and abroad. He has taken part in many prestigious group exhibitions, and has individually collaborated with the Foksal Gallery in Warsaw since 1984, and with Galerie Nordenhake in Stockholm and Berlin, among others. He has had solo exhibitions at leading museums and galleries in the country, as well as in London, New York, Berlin, Venice and others. His works have entered prestigious museum collections. He received the Jan Cybis Award (1998), the Zofia and Jerzy Nowosielski Foundation Award (1999), and the "Polityka" Passport (2000). The artist emphasizes his Belarusian nationality and is active in the local community and opposition movements in Belarus. In the 1996/97 academic year, the Warsaw Academy invited him to run a studio at the Faculty of Painting. He teaches there to this day, being not only an artistic authority for the students, but also a dedicated teacher, organizer of open-airs, workshops, joint trips to exhibitions.