Wojciech Pater (pseud. Fladrif), Grauer Mann attacked by Baba Yaga from the series On the Guardian of Eternity, 2015.

Wojciech Pater (pseud. Fladrif, born 1981).
Grauer Mann attacked by Baba Yaga from the series On the Guardian of Eternity, 2015.
oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm

Wojciech Pater (alias "Fladrif"), born 1981, lives and paints in Klodzko County in the Sudetenland. He has been doing oil painting on his own since 1997. He also uses drawing techniques and watercolors.
After years of experimenting with the creative process and searching for his own artistic path, he has developed two main methods of expression oscillating around Surrealism on the one hand and landscape discoveries of the second half of the 19th century on the other.
Surrealist paintings are created in many spontaneous sessions, often widely spaced over time, using a slow laser method. The initial vision usually undergoes a spontaneous transformation during preparation, an important part of the creative process.
Landscape, on the other hand, is suspended between realism and post-impressionism. It can be painted alla prima or lasered, impasto and spatula may appear, depending on the subject matter and mood. The starting point is contemplation and direct experience of the beauty of nature, usually while hiking with a backpack.
Despite their different assumptions and sources, the two worlds sometimes intermingle. Sometimes the landscape, which is realistic by design, becomes a habitat for new forms bordering on dreams, and sometimes vice versa - a sequence of color associations and structural improvisations deepens into the landscape and remains there.
"Painting for me is an inner journey towards the hidden and a method of observation and experience. I am inspired by the no-man's land of the borderland between dream and reality, ephemeral entities and parallel worlds, micro and macro-cosmic forms, everyday phenomena, creatures of nature, underground and light, and above all the forest and all manifestations of wildlife. The process of painting is a tool for in-depth contemplation of phenomena and a way to capture the sensations, transformations and energies flowing from ephemeral interactions."