Pawel Olszczynski (b. 1985, Krakow), "Heavy ornament," 2022

Biography
Graduate of the graphic design department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow and Hochshule fur Gestaltung, Offenbach am Main. In 2010-2012 he co-founded the New Roman gallery and collective in Krakow. Scholarship holder of the Mayor of Krakow (2011), scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2016). He mainly uses drawing, also creates painting works, and ceramic objects. Works on paper are most often drawings made in pencil, where the medium itself becomes almost an equal subject of the work - the mapping and juxtaposition of dense patterns and textures. The variation in the intensity of black and gray, can evoke associations with old engravings or retro illustrations. The juxtaposition of such a form with the depicted elements that refer to modernity can produce an effect of strangeness, but it is also a kind of game with our perception and memory - a search for connections between different eras, styles or motifs. Selected solo exhibitions: "Fantome Noir," Żak Branicka, Berlin, 2011; "Cigar," Wozownia Gallery, Toruń; "Psycho-the-Rapist," Galeria piktogram, Warsaw, 2016; "In the Near Past," BWA SiC, Wrocław, 2018; "Komety muskające słońce," Łęctwo Gallery, Poznań; "Heavy Ornament," Studio PRÁM, Prague; "In front she was a lion, from behind she was a snake," Piana Gallery Foundation, Kraków, 2022. Selected group exhibitions: "Friend of a Friend," Pictogram Gallery, Warsaw; 44th Bielska Jesień Biennale of Painting, BWA Bielsko Biała, 2019; "In these hustling, flamboyant and bewildering days, I am transported by thought," Stefan Gierowski Foundation, 2021; "Once a River Flowed Here," Piana Gallery Foundation, Krakow; Refugees Welcome. Artists for Refugees, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; "Restlessness Comes at Dusk," Zachęta - National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2022.