Leon Tarasewicz, WITHOUT TITLE, 2023

180,0 x 120,0 cm - acrylic, canvas signed on the reverse on canvas in marker l.g.: L. Tarasewicz 2023 Acrylic on canvas | 50 x [crossed out] | 130 x 190

The painting is accompanied by a certificate signed by the artist.

I think art always reflects a place. And time. This is inherent in creation, although the artist himself is not always aware of it. He is not aware of this connection. [There are no things in my paintings that have no reference to reality. Often people who work in opposition to established ideas return to the classics. Artists who create seemingly abstract paintings do not derive them from the idea of abstraction at all.

Leon Tarasewicz in a conversation with Elżbieta Dzikowska [in:] Artists Speak. Interviews with masters of painting, published by Rosikon Press, p. 232.

♣ a fee will be added to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, based on the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).

Leon Tarasewicz (stationed in Waliły, Bialystok, Poland, 14 III 1957, lives in the village of Waliły and in Warsaw) studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1979-1984. He received his diploma in the studio of Prof. Tadeusz Dominik. Already during his studies he found his own way of depicting nature subjected to synthesis on the verge of abstraction. In the early period, his paintings were based on carefully observed motifs, such as cones of trees on mountain slopes seen from afar, the rhythm of tree trunks in the forest, flocks of birds soaring, stones. Since around 1988, the artist has moved beyond concrete object references to purely painterly values: color, play of values, texture. He creates abstract compositions of fields and streaks of color filling large-format paintings, as well as - more and more often - paintings on gallery walls (e.g. at Konsthall, Malmö 1992, at Foksal Gallery, Warsaw 1994, at the exhibition "Art against Nature", Zachęta Gallery, Warsaw 1996). Over time, this type of spatial realizations in public places (although he also has a few private interior arrangements to his credit) became the main theme of his work. The apogee of this tendency came at the turn of the century, when the artist presented a colorful "floor" at the Venice Art Biennale in 2001 and a solo exhibition-installation at the Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw in 2003, conceived as a painting space into which the viewer can physically enter. Since the beginning of his career, the artist has enjoyed many successes, including market successes, at home and abroad. He has taken part in many prestigious group exhibitions, and has individually collaborated with the Foksal Gallery in Warsaw since 1984, as well as with Galerie Nordenhake in Stockholm and Berlin, among others. He has had solo exhibitions at leading museums and galleries in the country, as well as in London, New York, Berlin, Venice and others. His works have entered prestigious museum collections. He received the Jan Cybis Award (1998), the Zofia and Jerzy Nowosielski Foundation Award (1999), and the "Polityka" Passport (2000). The artist emphasizes his Belarusian nationality and is active in the local community and opposition movements in Belarus. In the 1996/97 academic year, the Warsaw Academy invited him to run a studio at the Faculty of Painting. He teaches there to this day, being not only an artistic authority for the students, but also a dedicated teacher, organizer of open-airs, workshops, joint trips to exhibitions.