Ernest Zawada

Ernest Zawada graduated from the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Diploma with honors in the studio of prof. Stefan Gierowski and doc. Krzysztof Wyzner (1995). Two-time scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (1995, 2007). Nominated for the Icarus Award in 2006 and the award of the Marshal of the Silesian Voivodeship. In 2008 he obtained the degree of habilitated doctor of arts, and in 2009 the title of associate professor. His painting was reproduced in an album published by the Presidential Gallery in Warsaw, alongside works by such eminent painters as: Jerzy Nowosielski, Stefan Gierowski, Jan Tarasin, Henryk Stażewski, Władysław Hasior, Jerzy Tchórzewski, Rajmund Ziemski and others. He presented his works during the next editions of the International Street Art Festival in Warsaw and the Karuzela Cooltury Festival (next to Franciszek Starowieyski). Author of the book "Learning drawing - learn from Polish masters" (PWN Publishing House). He deals with easel painting, workshop graphics, sculpture and installation. He is the author of happenings in public space. Currently, he is the curator of the Academic Gallery of the University of Life Sciences in Bielsko-Biała. Exhibitions: Author of 70 individual exhibitions. So far he has participated in 75 collective exhibitions. He exhibited, among others in Washington, New York, Izraleu (Acco), Germany, Italy (Rome), Hungary (Budapest), Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, with artists like Igor Mitoraj, Ad Reinhard, Istvan Haasz, Jo Kun, Dominique Chapusit and others . Collections: His work can be found in museums (Acco-Izrael, Vatican, Bielsko-Biała) and private collections in Poland and abroad (including the collection of the President of the Republic of Poland Bronisław Komorowski). Bibliography: Excerpts from prof. Stanisław Rodziński (Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków) The paintings constituting the essence of the habilitation thesis are a presentation showing the consistency with which the artist, from the time of his diploma, has been finding his painting world and its atmosphere, as well as his spiritual message, step by step. From the canvases on which outlines or maybe signs showing traces of architecture, landscape, sky, or earth, the painter comes to the idea of ??a picture which is a synthesis of the world, a search for symbols or signs which he communicates or wants to convey by the simplest, reduced to a minimum. The following paintings, both in terms of matter, color, structure, and the appearing traces of the painter's gesture, I would rather describe as a manifestation of a particular kind of painterly asceticism than minimalism. Limiting color, synthetic form, type of framing or composition - this is an eternal matter in art. Wherever simplicity was sought for spiritual needs, where synthesis was to focus and strengthen expression - the results were always excellent. If 'simplifying' and limiting was caused by a longing for effects - the realizations were fashionable at best. Zawada's paintings referring to the atmosphere, saturation of experience with Rothka, De Stael, but also with Gierowski - it is the pursuit of simplicity, concentration and expressive power. Zawada-painter he is a focused seeker of the essence of the lived world and life, as an arranger of happenings he is a passionate journalist Excerpts from professor Stefan Gierowski's reviews (Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw) Ernest Zawada's painting derives from this trend in art which, with the smallest number of elements, wants to reveal the most hidden energy in color. What is personal and revealing results from the sensitivity of colors, the accuracy of color combinations and the treatment of spatial plans.It is painting always with a perception of colors that touches the laws of optics and the psychology of seeing, but at the same time in its concentration, full of energy and content reaching for inexpressible feelings, for objectification, which can only be expressed in abstract concrete the effect of the color. Ernest Zawada is an artist who, in today's complications of art and culture, had no problem finding his personal path as a painter. Excerpts from an article by prof. Marek Rembierz (University of Silesia in Katowice) - "The art of Ernest Zawada, or the epiphany of simplicity" The art of Ernest Zawada is an epiphany of simplicity. This is its most basic and most valuable feature. After all, it occurs in a civilization context that is definitely not conducive to simplicity. Ernest Zawada's art goes radically and boldly against the current of civilization that destroys the value of simplicity and its various manifestations. Communing with the works of Ernest Zawada that manifest simplicity, one can also better understand the earthly fate of man. Ernest Zawada aims to bring out simple elements of pure cosmos and simple shapes of nature. With his work - in painting, graphics and sculptural installations - he consistently presents himself to a multitude of merging and altogether colorless images of contemporary "pictorial culture". In his art, Ernest Zawada focuses primarily on the archetypal elements of clear and simple landscapes, and these are precisely these elements - in an artistically interesting form - translation