Henryk Waniek, ETHER, 2021

45.00 x 45.00 cm - oil, canvas
signed on the reverse on canvas: HENRYK WANIEK | NOV-DEC 2021, next to: ETHER [in frame].

Henryk Waniek (born Oświęcim on March 4, 1942, lives in Warsaw) studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts in Katowice - a branch of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, he received his diploma in 1970. While still at university, he became associated with painters of the fantasy-magic orientation, Barbara and Henryk "Fantazos" Ziembicki. He then joined the Oneiron group (including Andrzej Urbanowicz, Urszula Broll, filmmaker Antoni Halor), which was perhaps the first in Poland in the counterculture generation to put forward a program of integrating art with Eastern philosophy and attempted to penetrate and artistically exploit so-called altered states of consciousness. Wańek's work is based on the impeccable technique of a painter-realist and the erudition of an explorer of the past, secret knowledge, symbolism of numbers, etc. The artist is also no stranger to the literary legacy, especially its fantasy and visionary themes. After all, this is only a framework for his purely artistic imagination and sensitivity with which he creates the imaginary spaces of his landscapes - panoramic and cosmic wildernesses and landscapes peculiarly "civilized", built-up, but never populated strictly speaking. In addition to painting, the artist is involved in theater and film set design, posters, as well as essayism and art criticism. He publishes in magazines and has also published collections of his texts in book editions.