Szczęsny Szuwar
Born in 1983 in Warsaw, studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2006-2011). Received his diploma with honours in Jarosław Modzelewski’s studio as well as academic grants in 2008-2009 and 2010-2011. A multiple award-winner in painting and drawing, member of the Oskar Karas group and participant in many collective exhibitions. Deals in painting, drawing and graphic art, designs posters, logos, record covers. One of his paintings was auctioned for the Synapsis charity foundation. Since 2010, he has been painting large-scale murals for Good Looking Studio. Fascinated by electric railways, train journeys, urban substance, underground rail systems and the natural element in modern-day societies.
Szczęsny Szuwar creates thematic paintings and his leading motif seems to be the civilization-nature opposition. The civilization, especially in his earlier paintings, is represented by machines, often trains and railway-related devices, as well as architecture. The nature is represented by vegetation, shown anonymously, hiding its identity. However, civilization and nature do not fight openly, they rather co-exist in silence. And it is the motif of silence, a certain lurking slumber, which emerges most in his recent works. The mysterious vagueness of the image and the inclination for dark, near-black tones allude to a dark secret. The secret could be the natural tendency for the expansion of all existing things, expressed by Szczęsny Szuwar in the form of some elements of the picture absorbing others. It could be the discontinuity of form created by the author by painting a house being pulled down, a tree which threatens the house being cut, or portraying leaves being eaten by vermin. Each composition, formally frugal and simple in construction, deliberately avoids a clearly formulated diagnosis and asks a question instead which intrigues the doubtful viewer.
It seems to me the author does his own professor Jarosław Modzelewski’s homework in painting, taking it a step further in depicting nature as a reflection of human activity. Szczęsny Szuwar, just like Modzelewski, uses a relatively rare painting technique – egg yolk tempera on canvas. It requires the artist to be technically disciplined in painting, offering in exchange luminous colours and satin matt effects, difficult to achieve in other techniques. Szuwar uses his paint of choice very well, taking advantage of all the qualities it offers.
Ryszard Woźniak
Szczęsny Szuwar
Selected exhibitions:
- Emotional Formal Solutions of Minimum Attractions, painting exhibition, Warsaw, 2013
- No Problem, painting exhibition, Studio 315, Warsaw, 2013
- Promotions – 21st Review of Young Polish Painting, Art Gallery in Legnica, 2011
- Best Diplomas 2011, Green Gate Gallery, Gdańsk, 2011
- Black Humour and Grey Reality, diploma exhibition, Academy Salon Gallery, Warsaw, 2011
- Utility Ceramics, diploma annexe, Turbo Gallery, Warsaw
- Mr. Oskar Karaś, exhibition of the Oskar project, private flat, 40 Mokotowska Street, Warsaw, 2011
- A Black Square on the White Background. The Ball Is Round and There’re Two Goals, painting exhibition, 3678 Gallery, ZPAP Building, Warsaw, 2010
- Young Art Auction, Senatorska Gallery, Warsaw, 2010
- Die Hunie Kosmonauten, Syf Gallery, Warsaw, 2010
- Solo exhibition of drawings, Faculty of Painting, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, 2010
- Nowhere Meaning Where?, collective drawing exhibition, Aspekt Gallery, Warsaw, 2009
- Wernix, exhibition of painting and photography, Nowy Theatre, Warsaw, 2009
- Modzelewski+Students, painting exhibition, Kierat Gallery, Szczecin 2009
