Jakub Julian Ziolkowski: In Utero

About

Ziolkowski?s paintings are a wild hallucinatory journey into his strange and often frightening universe. Skeletons battle soldiers in murky swamps; towers of eyeballs goggle cartoonishly; flesh peels wetly off bare bones. Ziolkowski has an unflinching attitude to the corporeal: the body takes centre stage, at once defiled and dissected.

Ziolkowski?s vision parallels a collision between the fantasy planet of Hieronymus Bosch and the grotesque cartoonish world of Philip Guston, viewed through the lens of the artist?s extraordinary imagination. Influenced by the folk tales and the often dark history of his native country, and by contemporary culture, Ziolkowski?s references are wide-reaching: from the Ancient Greeks to André Masson to Frank Zappa.

Ziolkowski?s measured and often delicate command of his medium belies his sinister subject matter. His paintings resonate with an unnerving atmosphere which speaks profoundly of the darker side of human nature.