Description
Stanislaw J. Woś. (1951-2011) - photographer, painter, illustrator
https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/stanislaw-j-wos:
In 1977-81 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk. Member of ZPAF. In 1985-1995 he founded and ran the "PAcamera" Club in Suwałki, one of the most important Polish photographic galleries, which held significant national exhibitions, including: "Tree" (1991), "Stone" (1993), "Sky" (1994). He was the leader of the Suwałki center, very important for Polish photography in the 1990s, centered around the "PAcamera" club (including Grzegorz Jarmocewicz, Jarosław J. Jasiński, Radosław Krupiński, Tadeusz Krzywicki, Tomasz Michałowski, Ewa Przytuła). The last major show of works by these artists, "Rituals and Symbols. Artists from the PAcamera Club circle in Suwałki" took place in 1999 at the Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok.
Since 1973, Woś has participated in group exhibitions and photographic competitions. The first exhibitions of his photography ("Portrait and Architecture," MDK, Elbląg; "Remembered Images," SDK, Elbląg) and drawing ("My World," MDK Elbląg) were held in 1978. In the 1980s, his work was more conceptualized and graphed, searching for the idea of a sign leading to a symbol ("Shape of the Sea," "Covenant with Light"). He showed such works in the exhibition "Polish intermedia photography of the 1980s" (BWA Poznań, 1988). At that time, photography in his conception came close to the issues he explored in drawing (""abbreviation" and "sketchy character"), also seeking "rawness" and "truth". In 1989, he participated in a major exhibition prepared by Urszula Czartoryska, "Spojrzenia - wrażenia. Polish photography of the 1980s from the collection of the Museum of Art in Lodz".
In the 1990s, his work focused on a broadly interpreted landscape, searching for symbolic meanings (the "Mystical Landscape" series). The artist's method was to use multiple exposures of the photographed motif without additional lighting. Graphicization of the image was somewhat reminiscent of the method used since the 1980s by Krzysztof Pruszkowski, but Woś's works were definitely more sacred in nature. They were united by graphicality and synthesis resulting from blurring the shapes of the photographed landscape. Exhibitions were important for the development of his work: "A Sign Appears" (Small Gallery of ZPAF-CSW, Warsaw, 1993), "Mystical Landscape" (FF Gallery, Lodz, 1994), and "From Darkness and from Light" (Gallery "pf", Poznan, 1996). In 1994, he exhibited in Copenhagen at the Copenhagen Visual Photo Festival. In his "Sun, Shadow and Wave" series, he used elements derived from the tradition of geometric abstraction, in which he also alluded to Polish constructivism, which he combined with the strength and vitality of nostalgic nature, reminiscent of the tradition of 19th century nocturnal painting. In 1996 he participated in the exhibition "Closer to Photography" (BWA Jelenia Gora), which was a summary of his previous reflections on the problem of "photogenic" ("pure") photography and turned out to be the most important manifestation of this attitude in the 1990s.
In the second half of the 1990s, Woś' works were awarded at the most important Polish competitions, including the Gorzow Wielkopolski Photographic Confrontations: XXIV in 1994 (honorable mention), XXV in 1995 (second prize), XXVI in 1996 (third prize), XXVII in 1997 (second prize), and at the Polish Landscape Biennale in Kielce: XIII in 1995 (third prize) and XIV in 1997 (first prize). At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century, Woś further graphicalized his works, specially toning them and pasting gold flakes on a collage basis, so that his photographs acquired the dimension of unique work, sometimes with a very painterly character. In fact, they are unrepeatable, as he used exposures of several negatives in them. Since the late 1990s, he also photographed mountains, which in his interpretation acquired a symbolic and expressive meaning. They have the character of unique graphics. It is worth emphasizing that in his artistic interpretation, photography is not a photogenic concept, but a means of realizing art, just like painting, where already the titles of the paintings suggest a common ontological provenance ("Eye of Heaven," "Stigmata," "Image of Darkness," "Abyss").
In 2002, he participated in the exhibition "Around the Decade. Polish Photography of the 1990s" and in the 3rd International Biennale of Photography and Visual Arts in Liège, Belgium. He attaches great importance to the titles of individual photographs (e.g., "The Day the Sun Went Out," 1999). He is also an interesting abstract painter close to the tradition of symbolism, seeking a religious sphere of the type initiated by the work of Stanislaw Fijalkowski.
Works in collections: Museum of Art in Lodz, Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Stadtbibliothek Paderborn (Germany).
Author: Krzysztof Jurecki, Museum of Art in Lodz, August 2004; updated: September 2011
