Zbigniew NOWAK (b. 1956), Smoker, 2017

acrylic, panel; 110 x 100 cm;
Signed and dated on reverse: ZB. NOWAK 2017;

Zbigniew Nowak graduated from the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts in 1985 under the guidance of Prof. Jan Szancenbach. He is a member of the ZPAP Kraków District. His body of work includes many solo and group exhibitions. Among them: Gegenwartige Polnische Kunst Austelung, Darmstadt; Szancenbach and Disciples 2018, Palace of Art or Art Meting Tomaszowice 2019 World upside down. His individual ability and sensitivity evident in his choice of colors, indicates his respect for colorism, especially its representative in the person of Professor Jan Szancenbach. The artist's studio has produced many series of paintings, a series of cars, beach scenes, women smoking a cigarette, stills from a Bunuel film.
The author's individual ability and sensitivity evident in his choice of colors, indicates his respect for colorism. The painting "Woman Smoking a Cigarette" from a series created in 2017, falling within the convention of juxtaposing saturated pop-art colors and divisions with simplified contour drawing. The scene painted, is a woman grasping a cigarette with her hand, this ordinary everyday gesture becomes a ceremony, stopping a moment full of concentration and reflection, and here in the painting it grows to a kind of transcendence. The author's characteristic ability of special fragmentation-framing of personified scenes, unprecedented sensitivity in the choice of colors-gives new content to the meaning layer of the painting.