Igor Dobrowolski

Igor Dobrowolski (b. 1987 in Jelenia Góra) is a painter, sculptor and activist. He only began to create in 2014, but very quickly gained international recognition. He is known for an unusually conscious, almost methodical approach to art: he works in parallel in several cycles, for which - as he himself says - different psychological personalities of the author are responsible.

In the cycle „Inner child” he paints with his left hand, on the border of trance and waking, giving the pictures an unlimited, childlike imagination; in „Feminine side” he sculpts rounded, fluid forms connected with the feminine element. Alongside them he creates his characteristic gold reliefs - he forms the surface, covers it with silver and lacquers it gold, and on the gleaming objects, associated with luxury, he places inscriptions and drawings that comment on the problems of the contemporary world.

It is precisely social and political engagement that forms the core of his work. Dobrowolski uncompromisingly takes up themes beyond the radar of many artists - physical and economic violence, war, genocide. Motivated by the desire to tell true stories, he carried out street-art actions in various countries, using art to show the suffering of the contemporary world. From violent lines and patches of colour there emerge in his work drastic scenes of wartime reality, which force the viewer to look with empathy where the media have inured us to the image.

This attitude was most fully shown by the exhibition „With Condolences” at the Wallspace Gallery and the Cliché Gallery in Warsaw (2024) - an act of intercession and accusation, in large part a direct commentary on the conflict in the Gaza Strip. Dobrowolski has exhibited his works around the world - including in Miami, Los Angeles, Taiwan, London and Berlin - collaborating with the Maddox and Gin Huang galleries, and currently with the HOFA Gallery; his works are in numerous private collections. Combining painterly craft with radical activism, Dobrowolski is one of the strongest voices of engaged art of his generation.