ink, archival book wrapper, 25 x 39 cm signed and inscribed at bottom: JSłomkowski MOA
exhibited: Jakub Slomkowski. New Book of Wonders, Aspekty Gallery, Warsaw 2024
reproduced: in the catalog of the above exhibition p. 62.
The New Book of Wonders series , from which the presented work comes, was inspired by a book by Belgian traveler and cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans. Elephant Moa refers to Heuvelmans' description of the memoirs of another explorer Richard Owen, who wrote of one species of Moa as a fearsome bird with the feet of an elephant. The heavyweight Moa, combined with the volcanic landscape of New Zealand, takes the form of a simple figure the author calls home. The motif of legs, the supports on which the form of the simplified landscape is arranged, is a motif repeated in several works from the New Book of Wonders series. The work refers to personal memories of a house and trees from the artist's family garden, which, after being cut down, turned into wooden stumps/blocks similar to those played with by young children constructing forms of simple architecture. The work has numerous associations with childhood, as well as with the symbolic role of the garden as a key place for the author's identity, clothed in the memory of the history of life on our planet.
Jakub Slomkowski (born 1982) - painter, draughtsman, musician, creator of installations. Graduate of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (diploma in painting in 2007). In 2004-2005, he studied at the Department of Fine Arts at the Complutense University in Madrid. His works oscillate between abstraction and symbolism. Since graduating, Slomkowski has been developing his individual alphabet of meanings built using very distinctive color transitions and a simultaneous sensitivity to color nuances. In his works, he looks at how the spheres of the sacred and profane work on the human imagination, and seeks ways to communicate between the animate and inanimate worlds. Space, which appears in many parallel orders and acquires different meanings, is the leitmotif of Slomkowski's work.
Major solo exhibitions:
"New Book of Miracles" at Aspekty Art Gallery, Warsaw, 2024.
"Giant" at HOS gallery, Warsaw, 2022
"The Queen and her brothers" at Piękna Gallery, Warsaw, 2021
"Indian slava" at Nanazenit, Warsaw, 2021
"Destroyers of words" at kunsthallekleinbasel, Basel, 2019
"Growling heads" at Dalek Art Gallery, Antwerp, 2019
"Moving sofa" at Ari Kapsus Gallery, Budapest, 2018
Major group exhibitions:
"Camp Fluff" New York, 2025
"Into these days of hustle, flame and bewilderment, I move with my thoughts" at Stefan Gierowski Foundation, Warsaw, 2021
Summer Juvenile Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Samsung Art Master - post-competition exhibition at CCA Zamek Sztuki Współczesnej in Warsaw.
Polish Art Now at the Saatchi Gallery in London.
As a musician, he has been composing music for Iza Szostak's performances since 2010. He is also the creator of the musical group Andy Why.
