Mikolaj Malesza

Mikołaj Malesza born in 1954, is a Polish artist who works primarily with paint but also explores sculpture and scenography. He is also a stage designer. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, at the Department of interior design, where he graduated from in 1979. Malesza had over 20 individual exhibitions and participated in numerous collective exhibitions in Poland and abroad. He has exhibited in Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, England, Czech and Slovak Republics, Italy, Austria, USA and Japan. Malesza was awarded numerous prizes like the second prize during the 37th fair of the National exhibition of Winter Art in Radom in 1984 and the third prize during the 12th J. Spychalski National Painting Competition in Poznań in 1987. Malesza created around 40 stage designs including the majority of Towarzystwo Wierszalin theatre. He was awarded the Fringe First prize at the famous theatrical festival in Edinburgh three times. Malesza was also a winner at the International Festival of Visual Art ANIMACJE in 2002 in Bielsko-Biała.

Figurative art, as opposed to abstract art, retains features from the observable world in its representational depictions of subject matter. Most commonly, figurative paintings reference and explore the human body, but they can also include landscapes, architecture, plants and animals — all portrayed with realism.

While the oldest figurative art dates back tens of thousands of years to cave wall paintings, figurative works made from observation became especially prominent in the early Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance masters created naturalistic representations of their subjects.

Pablo Picasso is lauded for laying the foundation for modern figurative art in the 1920s. Although abstracted, this work held a strong connection to representing people and other subjects. Other famous figurative artists include Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Figurative art in the 20th century would span such diverse genres as Expressionism, Pop art and Surrealism.

Today, a number of figural artists — such as Sedrick Huckaby, Daisy Patton and Eileen Cooper — are making art that uses the human body as its subject.

Because figurative art represents subjects from the real world, natural colors are common in these paintings. A piece of figurative art can be an exciting starting point for setting a tone and creating a color palette in a room.

Browse an extensive collection of figurative paintings on 1stDibs.