All my life I was careful. Of bacteria lurking in warm cream, cold water, a brain tumour and ice cream. I was paralysed by the fear of paralysis of the lower body. But I kept due caution, thanks to which I avoided many terrifying dangers. Including the worst one: life. It lay in wait for me in the light of a smashed street lamp, a rotten tree frozen in the shape of a deer and the place where mice are born from potatoes. It was unequivocally trying to catch up with me. It leered at me with a burning eye. It stood no chance: I crawled in the dark. Silently and imperceptibly. My strength came from the spirit whose essence I have tried to show in this exhibition.

Jan Cieślak

A visual artist. He studied at the Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science of the Warsaw University of Technology in 2009–2011 and at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (degree with distinction in 2016). He defended his doctorate in the studio of Professor Wojciech Cieśniewski at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2022). He works in painting and graphic design.

Solo painting exhibitions:

• Atrium Gallery, Newcastle University (United Kingdom, 2014)

• Galeria Fibak (Warsaw, 2016)

• participant in the exhibition Coming Out – best degree shows of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2016)