Identity

Our identity is shaped precisely by what Tarasewicz brings together in his paintings: the history of humanity and the culture it has created, as well as attachment to one’s own local history and surroundings. Like most of Tarasewicz’s works, the paintings presented at the exhibition have their source in the landscape. Living in his native village of Waliły, the artist carefully observes nature.
One of the paintings is inspired by an optical phenomenon called Alexander’s band, named after Alexander of Aphrodisias, a Greek philosopher who lived at the turn of the 1st and 2nd century CE and was the first to describe it. It is the dark strip of sky between the arcs of a double rainbow. This work perfectly combines the artist’s attentiveness to nature with his interest in the culture of various geographical areas and its history.
The second painting shows a road vanishing into the fog between leafless trees. Such a view often accompanies the artist during his early morning walks. It may also be read metaphorically, as an image of moving away, of entering a misty, unknown space. Formally, the work refers back to Tarasewicz’s earlier paintings from the mid-1980s – compositions built of simplified, rhythmic forms using a limited color palette.
Leon Tarasewicz was born in 1957. He graduated from the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the studio of Tadeusz Dominik, where he himself led a painting studio from 1996. From 2009 to 2022, he ran the Studio of Painting Space at the Faculty of Media Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In 2001, he represented Poland at the 49th International Biennale in Venice. In 2005, he was awarded the Silver Medal for Merit to Culture “Gloria Artis,” and in 2011 the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. In 2000, he received the Polityka Passport, the Jan Cybis Award, and the Zofia and Jerzy Nowosielski Foundation Award, while in 2007 he was honored with the Grand Prize of the Culture Foundation. In 2018, he became the laureate of the Professor Gieysztor Award.
He is engaged in painting, both in its traditional form and in ways that reach far beyond the canvas, incorporating interiors, architectural elements, and landscapes. He lives and works in Waliły.