Maciej Olekszy

HEAD, Large Format - Modern Figurative Oil and Leaf Painting, New Expressionism

2021

Maciej Olekszy was born in 1982 in Poland. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland, in 2007. He made his debut in 2009, winning the Salted Candy Award. In 2017, he got a scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. “As a painter, I have a need to present what is next to me. I work from nature, with a themed face to face. It seems to be obvious, but for things that touch me directly, I have stronger emotions. And even if I use photography during the work, I have to make it by myself, or it has to be a picture from my environment or another place which is connected with me. Despite using relay at work, photography is not an introduction to a subject at the beginning. I have always been interested in the bionic structure of nature to be seen in the environment or the human body. When I paint, I do not only mean to reconstruct the visual shape of representation, but most of all present its quality in terms of matter. Bionic corporeality has primordial, basic properties and bears testimony to our physical existence. Bodies express the mental and emotional conditions of individuals. By observing humans and nature, I strive to track down the states, which make us who we are and express our desires and fears. My works often illustrate the separation of individuals from society and their relations with the immediate environment from the angle of desires and missed opportunities,” he says. In 2017, Olekszy won the scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and the Salted Candy Award in 2009.