Jacek Yerka

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Jacek Yerka (born 1952) is a Polish artist and painter from Toruń.

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[edit] Life and work

Yerka studied art for a short time at University, but then learnt from direct study of Northern European masters, the Van Eycks, Dierck Bouts, Robert Campin, Bosch, and surrealists such as Magritte.

Yerka said:

“ I did my first painting of my life a year before going to college, where I began studying graphics. My instructors always tried to get me to paint in the more contemporary abstract style, and move away from my fascination with realism. I saw this as an attempt to stifle my own creative style and steadfastly refused to fall in line. Eventually, my teachers relented. ”

His paintings are acrylic on canvas and carefully rendered, using images from his childhood, including his grandmother's kitchen. He also includes odd beasts and whimsical landscapes. He comments, "For me, the 1950's were a kind of Golden Age ... If I were, for instance, to paint a computer, it would definitely have a pre-war aesthetic to it."

Yerka's work has been exhibited in Poland, Germany, Monaco, France, and the United States. His works are also in Polish art museums.

Yerka's work can be seen in Mind Fields, a book in which Harlan Ellison has provided narration for each of Yerka's selected pieces.[1]

[edit] Further reading

  • The Fantastic Art of Jacek Yerka, Morpheus International (1994)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Mind Fields: The Art of Jacek Yerka : The Fiction of Harlan Ellison, Morpheus International (1993), ISBN 0962344796 - reviewed by Robert K.J. Killheffer, At play in the fields of the weird - surrealist painter Jacek Yerka, in Omni magazine, Dec 1993

[edit] External links

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