material digital graphics, framed, 2008 size
70 x 100 cm
Jan Pamuła
Born in 1944 in Spytkowice, near Oswiecim. Studied painting and printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, 1961 -1968, and at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, 1967.
He received his diploma in 1968. He is currently a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. In 1980 he was a scholarship recipient of the French Government, and in 1982 he was a scholarship recipient of the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York. In 1993, he was awarded a Fulbright grant and did a research internship and taught in the Art Department at the New York Institute of Technology in New York. In 1992 he taught at the State University of Connecticut in Storrs. He is a long-time member of ZPAP, and a member of the "Krakow Group." Professor and two-time Rector of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. He has received many awards, especially for his graphic works. He works in painting, graphic design and electronic media. In 2003 - Witold Wojtkiewicz Award for his painting exhibition "Geometric Objects - retrospective" at Starmach Gallery. A key period in Jan Pamula's work was the 1970s, when he turned to geometric abstraction. His explorations at that time were aimed at building "a unified, universalist vision of reality." This building meant, in practice, using the role of chance in the creation of geometric systems. Mathematical statistics based on the calculus of probability are used here by throwing dice, computer action or tables of random numbers. Pamula's art has been compared, among others, to Mondrian , although the latter's neoplasticism was derived from other theoretical premises. Closer to the artist seems to be the suprematist Malevich or precisely Paul Klee. In his theoretical considerations he refers to "Das bildnerische Denken Klee" as an inexhaustible source of knowledge about plastic form and the essence of artistic creation.
For Jan Pamula's art it is characteristic to carry out in-depth explorations within a single motif based on scientific formalism combined with a purely painterly approach to color. Pamula focuses his search around two main series: computer drawings and geometric objects. Together they form a set of objects linked by a common compositional and intellectual idea.
The first computer graphics were created in 1980 and were based on strict calculations based on machine work. The basic motif is a randomly processed rectangle. An algorithm based on the number four - the arithmetic equivalent of a rectangle - is responsible for the composition of the figures. Looking at Pamula's objects, we see that each of them is a set of closely interdependent elements forming aesthetically sophisticated arrangements - the fruit of the fusion of technology and human intellect. His geometric works are a fascinating formal phenomenon that can be considered as a whole - a collection of related shapes.
On April 21, 2021, by the decision of the Board of Directors of the Association of the International Graphic Arts Triennial in Krakow, Jan Pamula was awarded the GRAND PRIX d'HONNEUR - an award given for lifetime achievement and special contributions to the international and Polish graphic arts community.
