Sławek (Zbiok) Czajkowski

Sławomir „Zbiok” Czajkowski (b. 1982 in Zielona Góra) is a painter, muralist, illustrator and curator, working under the pseudonym Zbiok (ZBK). He studied graphic art and painting at the Institute of Art and Visual Culture of the University of Zielona Góra, where in 2006 he defended his diploma in painting in the studio of Professor Ryszard Woźniak. He lives and works in Wrocław.

He began as a graffiti and mural painter, becoming one of the most recognisable creators of Polish street art. His works, growing out of the post-graffiti current, move within the field of the signs and symbols of pop culture, and in their content take up the problems of violence, social inequality, intolerance and the alienation of the individual - often with a pacifist and anarchist message. Czajkowski's characteristic style draws at once on the aesthetic of the street, the painting of 20th-century masters, pop culture and the images of the internet; the critic Tristan Manco called him „the Fernand Léger of the present day”.

At a certain moment - when his pseudonym was already widely known and his murals were among the most highly regarded - Czajkowski deliberately broke with the image of a street-art artist and focused on easel painting. This gesture, which he himself called a „volte” and the critics a „liberation”, became a turning point: his painting retained the energy and critical tone of the street, while moving away from his former stylistics towards an increasingly autonomous form.

In parallel he played an important role as an animator of the scene. In 2008-2014, together with Joanna Stembalska and on behalf of BWA Wrocław, he co-created „Out of Sth” - the first international biennale of art in public space in Poland; he is also the author of a documentary film about the Urban Art milieu (2011). Since 2014, together with Karolina Zajączkowska, he has formed the artistic duo DWA ZETA, and since 2019 he has taught art in public space at the University of Zielona Góra.

Laureate of the Grand Prix of the 9th Eugeniusz Geppert Competition for debuting Polish painters (2009) and a scholar of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, he has taken part in over a hundred exhibitions and projects in Poland and abroad - including in Germany, the United Kingdom, the USA, Russia, Japan and China. Counted by critics such as Tristan Manco and the Tate Modern curator Cedar Lewisohn among the world's leaders of urban art, Zbiok is one of the most interesting creators of his generation.