Stanislaw Baj, MATH. PRAYER, 2003/2015

120,0 x 90,0 cm - oil, canvas signature p.d.: S. Baj

Sign. on the reverse p.g.: Stanislaw Baj | Mother | Prayer | 2003 | 2015



An important trend in the painting of Stanisław Baj, in addition to the landscape of the Bug River, is portraiture. The artist depicts on his canvases the inhabitants of his native village of Dolhobrody, neighbors, acquaintances, but most often he portrays his mother. Over the course of forty years, he created more than three hundred images of her. He painted Maria Baj in the kitchen, at the table, by the barn, by the fence or - as in our painting - during prayer. Such an elaborate painterly story about the mother, Anna Wachta wrote, is a touching rarity in the history of painting. Mother, through her most numerous and superhuman presence in the paintings, becomes the most important object - a symbol of Baja's figurative painting. Mother - the only certain and unelectable element of human life. She is a straight line of duration, of which we are an extension. The mother ages and dies, but does not disappear: she persists biologically in her only son and looks from hundreds of his paintings. Life continues. (Anna Wachta, Contribution to the biography of Stanislaw Baj, in Stanislaw Baj, Olszanica 2023, p. 37)

Elsewhere, the author points out the element of transience in Baj's work, as well as the means of expression used by the artist: The series of portraits of his mother is a study of transience, unique in painting, evidence of coexistence in time, duration and extinction. Old age has its weariness and dignity here. The faces are expressive, often detached from the body, levitating, glowing in the dark. (...) He is not interested in what a person looks at, only how. He doesn't paint the eyes - he paints the look. Expression. To the effect, he looks for the "inner rhythm of the face", reads the "architecture of the head". Baj does not refine the details, yet we would easily recognize his model in a crowd. In every stroke of his brush dwells - in different proportions - both brilliance, color and darkness. (...) Baja's paintings have another intangible quality: brilliance. It is difficult to define, but we can instinctively distinguish it from other optical effects. Glow beats from the saints. Glow beats from Baj's paintings, even the darkest ones. (Anna Wachta, Baj. Painting, Olszanica 2022, pp. 8-9)



♣ An additional fee will be added to the Purchase Price 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).



Stanisław Baj (Dolhobrody n/Bugiem 1953, lives in Warsaw and Dolhobrody) studied in 1972-78 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the studios of Professors Bylina, Sienicki and Maciąg. He graduated with honors in Prof. Maciąg's studio. He is currently a lecturer at his alma mater. He cultivates painting and drawing. He has had many solo exhibitions including: Mazovian Museum in Plock (1995); State Art Institute in Moscow (2002); BWA Kielce(2003); Zapiecek Gallery W-wa ( 2004); Test Gallery W-wa (2010): Galeria aTAK W-wa (2011), he also participated in group exhibitions. He is considered one of the most interesting continuators of the tradition of Polish realist painting. His interests revolve around the Podlasie countryside and its inhabitants. He creates portraits of Polish peasants, uniquely bringing out their noble simplicity and expressively depicting the toil of daily work. In the broadly painted, nostalgic landscapes of the Bug River, which are the second leading subject of his paintings, the artist operates with pulsating light and color. In an interview he says this about them: " The paintings reflect how I feel and see the Bug River. When painting, I wanted to give together how vast and great nature is, towards which a person should feel awe." An album dedicated to the artist's work was published in 2001.