Daniel Krysta

Daniel Krysta (b. 1976 in Cieszyn) is a contemporary Polish painter who creates paintings combining hyperrealism and matter painting. In 1999-2004 he studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, where in 2004 he defended his diploma „Matter, Object, Sign” in the studio of Professor Stanisław Kortyka; the work was nominated for the Grand Prix in the competition of the President of the Republic of Poland for the best diploma. He lives and works in Wrocław.

Krysta creates abstract painterly compositions built from hyperrealistic objects resembling machine parts or vessels, colliding their smooth structure with a textured background and completing the whole with a refined, contrasting colouring. His fascination with the „nature” of technology shifts into a fascination with the matter of the image itself and a play with its rules - this results in a deepened illusion, a luring of the eye with realistically rendered details that in fact arise from the structure of the canvas. The artist does not distinguish cycles, speaking rather of „open sets”, completing one another over time.

Repeatedly awarded, he won among others the Grand Prix at the 4th National Biennale of Painting and Unique Textile in the Tricity (2007), the Grand Prix at the 1st International Biennale of the Image in Łódź and the First Prize in the NanoArt competition (Galerie Roi Doré, Paris, 2019); in the same year, in the London competition „Wildlife Artist of the Year”, he won in the Urban Wildlife category. His paintings are in public collections - including the National Museum in Gdańsk and the Bielska BWA Gallery - and in private ones in Poland and abroad.