Wiktor Jackowski

The Monument To Taras Shevchenko in Kharkiv, Ukraine - Expressive Oil Painting

2022

Wiktor Jackowski's biography is reflected in the varied motifs of his works. After completing his academic study on the Academy of Art in Krakow and an Erasmus year at L'Ecole Etienne in Paris he gained experience in Aruba before becoming the lead artist as a painter for the internationally award-winning and Oscar-nominated film “Loving Vincent”. In 2016, 2017 he lived in Athens / Greece, where he passed on his experience and knowledge as a team leader in the Greek film industry, later followed by a stay in NY. The works of Wiktor Jackowski are like moments caught in the eye of camera. These are fleeting seconds which may not be repeated again, but at the same time remain so much like many others. Their exceptionality is constituted by singling them out of their surroundings, entitling them to discern their full form and meaning. Jackowski is a keen observer of reality. He depicts a single piece or an occurrence, sampling them from their natural domain in order to have a closer look and confront with the spectator’s reaction. These extracts, coherent with either urban fabric or nature, construct a part of our ordinary reality. We take them for granted daily, since they remain kind of invisible in the frantic pace of life, so obvious and down-to-earth to become worthless of beholding. Few of us think whether somebody might have only just been sitting on a momentarily empty chair, nobody notices flags flying above their heads, and a billboard may at most infuriate us with its glare displaying banal advertisements. The subject matter of the works is highly diversified – from still life, through landscapes, elements, urban scenes, to figurative depictions. The interest of the artist in optical phenomena such as a flash, light explosion, street lighting is prominent. The title of the exhibition ”Beyond The Shadow” has therein its other, literal interpretation. Light as a symbol of enlightenment is here just going out of the darkness and, simultaneously, an interesting, attention-catching, artistic scheme. The author expresses himself most willingly with oil paints on canvas. One can plainly see his inclination towards the play of light and shadow, wherein the dominant factor of the presentation is centred around a strong, bright highlight of colour. Apart from this dash of paint, the colour scheme remains rather supressed. The subject matter seems to be more comprehensible because of the limited range of artistic means. The art of Wiktor Jackowski has a great amount of emotion. It confronts us with our experiences and enables us to take the eye off the object which had been given the very individual space. You do not just look at his paintings. You experience and feel them. They are only and so much a catalyst for the magic happening inside us. Sandra Zagajna