Asking price 700
Estimate 1500 - 1600
Ink, pen, lavage, watercolor, paper; 24 x 34 cm
Signed p.d.: ZSMP 1985 - 1998 Sroka
Jacek SROKA
b. 1957 Cracow
Studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts, Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow (1976-1981). In 1981 he received his diploma in the studio of Prof. Mieczyslaw Wejman. Until 1989, he was a teacher at the Graphic Arts Department of the academy. He is simultaneously engaged in painting and printmaking in metal techniques, mostly in color (etching and aquatint). As one of the few artists in Cracow, he has been contributing to the image of the Neo-Expressionist trend in Poland since the 1980s. He paints in a characteristically simplified manner, sharply defining colors and shapes, often exaggerating them in the direction of caricatured treatment of figures and situations. He does not shy away from sarcasm or even mockery, as in works with political, anti-communist overtones. His paintings are characterized by a variety of spatial shots. Particularly noteworthy is the artist's frequently used technique of multiplying reality in a single composition, which involves inscribing an image within an image. Other characteristic features of Sroka's paintings are the duplication of figures or covering the entire surface of the painting with a "raster" of duplicated small elements. He has had eighty solo exhibitions and has participated in many Polish art shows at home and abroad.
