Leon TARASEWICZ
PAINTING IMPLEMENTATION
Zamkowy Square
painting on the steps leading to the Lublin Castle
Leon Tarasewicz – born in 1957 in Waliły in Podlasie, where he still lives. One of the most intriguing contemporary painters. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and has led the Guest Studio of Painting there since 1996. In 2011, he was awarded the title of Professor of Fine Arts. He debuted at the Warsaw Foksal Gallery in 1984. Cooperation with this gallery enabled Tarasewicz to present his works abroad. As early as 1988, the artist’s works were presented as part of the Venice Biennale at the Aperto`88 exhibition. Tarasewicz is the recipient of many awards, including the Jan Cybis Award (2000), the Nowosielski Award and the Polityka’s Passport (2000). For 2006, he received the Grand Prize of the Foundation of Culture for ‘consistently challenging both the traditional understanding of painting and all conventions of understanding art.’. In 2011, he was made a Knight of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland. He currently collaborates on an ongoing basis with the Springer and Winckler Gallerie in Berlin and Nordenhake Gallery in Stockholm, as well as with the Biała Gallery in Lublin.
The artist emphasises his Belorussian roots and favours initiatives to revive Belorussian culture.
Full of invention, he discovers ever new facets of such an old and, it would seem, already well-recognised discipline as painting. In the works of recent years, he has been breaking the formal limitations of painting to a space stretched over a canvas frame. He often takes the opportunity to go beyond the frame of the stretcher bars. He paints the space of walls, columns and floors. As he himself says, ‘(…) painting from its dawn in the Neolithic period was created on walls, floors or ceilings’. Tarasewicz also has a passion outside of art – he is president of the Association of Breeders of Ornamental Hens and owns representatives of rare species of this fowl. In June 2022, the artist received an honorary doctorate from the University of Białystok.
