Marcin KOWALIK (b. 1981), Composition, 2008

acrylic, canvas; 85 x 130 cm;
Signed and dated on the back, on canvas: Marcin Kowalik 2008.

Graduate of the High School of Fine Arts in Zamosc (2001). From 2001 to 2006 he studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow in the studio of Professor Adam Wsiolkowski.
Also under the direction of this pedagogue, he received his doctoral degree in 2009. He is currently an assistant in his studio. He cultivates painting and works in installation, object and performance. He is active as an organizer, curator and art supervisor. Author of painting series: "Travel Space" (since 2006); , "Landscape in a Box" (since 2007); , "Michael" (since 2007); , "Unknown Kingdom" (since 2008); "Back to Basics" (since 2010); , "Mirror Phase" (since 2011), "Convergent"(2016), "A Tale of the Working (Wo)Man" (2016). He is in the lead of the poll of "Rzeczpospolita" - "Kompas Młodej Sztuki". He has participated in about 40 exhibitions in Poland and many countries around the world.
He had more than 30 solo exhibitions, including in Hamburg, Leipzig, Du¨sseldorf, Dublin, Knoxville, Brussels, Bern, Warsaw, Zamosc and Cracow (National Museum). Recipient of scholarships from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, the Mayor of Zamosc, and the Mayor of Krakow. In 2015 he received (together with Adam Wsiolkowski) the ARS QUAERENDI Award of the Malopolska Region. In 2007 he participated in the workshop for curators Crosskick Academie, Berlin organized by AdKV. In 2007/2008 he received a doctoral scholarship from the Academy of Fine Arts, Krakow. In 2008, he stayed in Du¨sseldorf on the Ateliers HoANherweg 271 scholarship, and is a recipient of a Grazell Foundation scholarship. He has guest lectured at the National College of ART and Design in Dublin and at the University of Ostrava.
Together with historian of philosophy Ewelina Zwolan-Gottfrund, he gave lectures at the European Union House in Dublin and the "Depot" - Gallery of the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin. His works are in the collection of the National Museum in Gdansk, the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, the Regional Museums in Stalowa Wola and Chelm, the Borowik Collection, the Clifford Chance Collection and numerous private collections at home and abroad. He is the founder of the "Faith in Painting" scholarship aimed at students in the final grades of his native High School of Fine Arts in Zamosc. Creator of the project , "Picture in a Nutshell" - with students and employees of the Swiss bank UBS, conducts art workshops in children's hospitals (St. Ludwig's Hospital in Krakow, WUM Pediatric Hospital).
Based on the resulting works, she paints and coordinates the creation of paintings for these hospitals. He lives and works in Krakow.
"Marcin creates intriguing paintings, resolving in them the painterly problems posed to himself, penetrating with equal freedom the spaces of both ancient and contemporary art. The paintings are always "about something," regardless of whether they are located in the area of abstraction or figuration. The author's extraordinary artistic imagination, combined with a perfect mastery of the workshop, results in the form of painting compositions, always carrying some message expressed in perfect form, proving the very correct and still valid statement that "wise art does not have to be ugly."
(Adam Wsiolkowski)