Mieto Olszewski, a professor of Fine Arts Academy in Gdansk, presents in BSCC Gallery his newly created paintings. A painter, printmaker, illustrator, but also an essayist and storyteller, famous for his lightness of pen and undiscriminating choice of words - a living chronicle of the Gdansk Academy, inexhaustible source of anecdotes and stories. He often says that he has been painting the same picture for his entire life, so one will not be surprised to learn that the subject of his newest paintings is nude.
Large, subdued in color images are juxtaposed with a set of objects. The idea for these “sculptures” was born from the artist's passion for collecting old objects, and his unique sense of humor and ability to comment on the world. Most of the presented objects are exhibited for the first time. This fact was humorously summed up the artist himself: For old age I have become a sculptor.
But it is painting and drawing that Mieto is particularly passionate about. A student and assistant of Jacek Zulawski, a proponent and promoter of this noble art forms is the author of words: "Painting, being one of the most beautiful art forms, is being constantly betrayed, just like the ugliest wife. Thousands of students extorts painting education and does not use it in future. Painting is not fashionable, but we have faith in the cyclical nature of returns”. (Department of paintings and prints of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk - 2007, p 106). Probably most of students heard from the professor: It does not interest me what you're painting, what is important is how you paint it!
Mieto Olszewski (1945) - graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts (ASP) in Gdansk in 1969. Since 1971 he is consistently associated with the Faculty of Painting at the Academy. Since 1993, he has been granted a title of a professor. He participated in about 250 collective exhibitions and more than 20 solo exhibitions (FRG, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iran, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Holland, France, Poland). He has received numerous awards for drawing and painting (Ministry of Culture award in 1980, Silver Pin 1970, a gold medal at the Satire World Exhibition in Moscow in 1973, Silver Plaquette Skopje in 1977, Prometej 1980, First Prize at the XXIII Drawing World Exhibition in Montreal in 1986, the prize XIV Painting Festival in Szczecin, medal Pro Musica, Arte et historia in 1983, the prize of the Mayor of Gdansk, GTPS prize for the best exhibition of 2000). It is also an author of book illustrations, and his drawings were published in Polish and foreign periodicals (eg Szpilki, Czas, Prometej, Wieczór Wybrzeża, Pardon). His works are in collections in National Museum in Szczecin, Muzeum Okręgowe in Torun, Museum of Caricature in Montreal, Amsterdam, Skopje, Gabrovo, Warsaw and private collections in the country and abroad.
Curator: Anna Zalewska
Exhibition opening: daily, 10AM - 6PM
entrance fee 1 zł
Finisage and artist's benefis: April 27, 2012, 19.00
