Krzysztof SKARBEK, Animals track research results

42x32, inkography and acrylic on glass, 2009

Obtained a diploma in painting in the studio of Prof. Zbigniew Karpinski at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Wroclaw (now the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw). Since 2012, he has been a full professor and runs a graduate studio at the Faculty of Painting. Vice-dean of the Faculty of Painting and Sculpture from 2008-2012. Member of ZPAP. Krzysztof Skarbek's main fields of work are painting, video art, installation, plastic and musical performance.

He has been creating since his early childhood. The most important thing for the artist is to express rebellion against hypocrisy, changing stereotypes, Promethean struggle for values, humor and love. In his art he tries to depict, often with positive irony, emphasized by humor, the ever-present antinomies like love and death, friendship and struggle. According to the artist, his paintings can trigger questions about the future of our civilization. When creating, he activates events from the borderline of everyday life, dreams, colloquial activities and fairy tales. In his fairy tale, banal everyday life is transformed into the realization of desires for an unforced life, in accordance with the projections of unfettered fantasy. The formal means used are intended to emphasize the idea of the message - the artist uses strong color, as well as contrast in stable and jittery planes. The structure of the paintings is open to multiple approaches to the figurative-painting problem. In Krzysztof Skarbek's art, one can see the variety of the applied method of expression in the form of combining distant events into new, fantastic scenes, as well as the introduction of painterly structures and textures on the surface of the canvas. The optimistic content of the artist's work, combined with the methods of artistic expression, strive to indicate positive emotional states. In his work, the artist is constantly searching, using various means of expression as authorial responses to the problems of expressive figuration painting. Skarbek is inspired by Jan Matejko - in his opinion, he is an artist who outstandingly combines important historical themes in an adequate painting form and presents spirituality and emotions that are universal to the viewer.

He has participated in more than 400 group exhibitions, including in the US, Japan and China, and has presented his works in 60 solo exhibitions. His paintings and films are in many private and museum collections at home and abroad .His works also include about 40 films - video art, 45 art and music actions, including those of the art groups he founded, Swallowers of Pearls from Odra and Cabinet of Plastic Operations.