Jakub Słomkowski

Jakub Słomkowski (b. 1982) is a painter, draughtsman, sculptor, creator of installations and musician. He completed the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (diploma in painting in the studio of Krzysztof Wachowiak in 2007, additional specialisation: multimedia), and in 2004-2005 he studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Complutense University in Madrid. He is one of the more interesting artists of the younger generation.

Słomkowski's work oscillates between abstraction and symbolism. Since his studies he has been working out his own individual „alphabet of meanings”, built with characteristic colour transitions. In his works he looks at how the spheres of the sacred and the profane act on the human imagination, he is interested in apotropaism (protective magic) and seeks ways of communication between the animate and the inanimate world; his leitmotif is space occurring in many parallel orders. A recurring thread is a tamed imaginarium of „monsters” - beings rarely anthropomorphic, which for the artist have positive connotations.

In parallel Słomkowski develops a musical activity - he composes music for theatre productions and animations (the soundtrack he co-created for the animation „Airborne” won an award at the Oscar-qualifying Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2022) and runs the solo project I AM SORRY DAVE. His works have been shown in Poland and abroad, including in Basel, Antwerp and Budapest.