Inspiring

Jacek Yerka

Jacek Yerka – a painter with an incredible and untamable imagination. From his paintings emerges a fantastic, fairy-tale world, unusual characters or animals, props and places, seemingly familiar to us, but how unusual, symbolic, astonishing and delightful. At first glance, these paintings are quite realistic, they catch our attention with their vivid colors, but after a short while we fall into their interior, we get carried away by the artist’s fantasy, we drown in conjectures, associations, allusions. Because in Yerka’s world nothing is what it seems to be on the surface.

Jacek Yerka is a contemporary continuator of Flemish grandmasters such as Pieter Bruegel, Jan van Eyck and Hieronymus Bosch. Drawing inspiration from the old masters, he creates surreal compositions with great craftsmanship and devotion to detail.  He does not identify with any artistic trend, and does not allow himself to be labeled. “Classifications are for clerks,” he says.

As the artist himself says, the ideas for these unusual scenes painted on canvases are often childhood memories, images from dreams, nightmares from the past, but also characters and situations created while listening to music or reading science-fiction literature. “I like in creative work to cross paths, discover new associations, delve into impossible worlds – these are the most pleasant, but also the most difficult stages of working on a painting.”

 

In 1995 Jacek Yerka received the prestigious World Fantasy Award for best artist. He exhibits in Poland and abroad, including Germany, France and the USA, and has a loyal audience for his art on all continents.

Born in 1952, the painter is now considered one of the most talented contemporary Polish artists. Deservedly so!

It’s worth listening to the painter discuss some of his compositions, which were on view at the Agra Art Auction House in Warsaw over the summer: https://youtu.be/AQ2aQ-sgpWU

 

Most photos of Jacek Yerka’s paintings are from https://www.agraart.pl