The basic value in my artistic work is colour. It supplements, and sometimes substitutes light. In the dialogue with the viewer, it creates words in unconscious language, and is a source of energy. It attracts with its harmony, while sometimes it arouses fear, it intrigues, or denotes anxiety. For me, colour is a place of meeting. Just there, reason and logic find yearning. Imagination drives out reality, and infinity looks for its beginning. Using only colour, we can represent the sun, which is a symbol of life. Other attempts at description, geometric or mathematical ones, are dead.
In the process of making my picture, the combinations of colours and their shades are crystallized in the stream of the emotion felt. The tones of colour are created by emotion, they operate directly, without mind barriers, there is neither distance there, nor calculation and consideration. The geometric limitation of colours on the balanced surface of the square, separating them with a line, causes inner vibration and tensions, and arouses the kind of emotions which are more free and less defined than those aroused by an object.
Antonio Calderara, whose art has greatly fascinated me and which I admire, maintained that “the picture is not a relation between colour, form and surface, but mainly a mutual relation of colours.” The moment when the painted picture begins to exist independently, looking for its place in the dialogue with the viewer, is the most essential one. Spiritual energy, inner peacefulness – which is not equivalent to emptiness but which results from equanimity – operating with maturing colour, stimulate emotion and fantasy. The picture, using the language of colours, starts a conversation, opens an entire depth of sound and spiritual readiness for reception, it becomes an unexhausted source of surprise and discovery, an inspiration to all those who have the courage to reject commonplace reality and immerse themselves in contemplation, listening in silence to the whisper of colours.
Born in 1953 in Rabka-Zdrój, the artist spent his youth in Krakow, where he became close with the milieu of the Academy of Fine Arts in the mid-1970s.
Having left Poland in 1977, he studied Scandinavian studies in Göteborg as well as German studies and art history in Innsbruck.
Between 1982 and 1984 he would visit the studio of Henryk Stażewski, whose work prompted the artist's explorations into geometric abstraction.
In 1984 he moved to West Berlin, where he dedicated himself to creative work.
In 1994, Nowacki was awarded a private scholarship in West Orange, N.Y., USA.
From the mid-1990s, he collaborated with Heinz Teufel, a collector and owner of Europe's leading concrete art gallery.
In 1997–2001, Nowacki participated in the International Plein-Air for Artists Using the Language of Geometry, organized by Bożena Kowalska in Okuninka near Chełm and in Orońsko.
In 2001, he was awarded a scholarship by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in New York.
In 2005, the artist travelled to Osaka to prepare his first exhibition in Japan. He spent 2006 in a studio on Anna Maria Island, Florida, USA, where he worked on reliefs for Seth Jason Beitler Gallery in Miami.
In 2015, Nowacki set up a new atelier at an erstwhile large industrial site in Dolní Vítkovice, Ostrava, where he worked until 2018.
Currently, the artist lives and works in Berlin.
1987
Pommersfelde Gallery, West Berlin
1992
Pryzmat Gallery, Krakow
1993
Sernov & Rose Gallery, Berlin
1994
Lederman Fine Art Gallery, New York
1995
Berinson Gallery, Berlin
1996
Kirchner Haack Fine Gallery, Miami
Amfilada Gallery, Szczecin
2000
Heinz Teufel Gallery, Berlin
2002
International Cultural Centre, Krakow
2003
Municipal Gallery Arsenal, Poznań
2004
Piekary Gallery, Poznań
National Museum, Szczecin
2005
KISSHO Fine Art Gallery, Osaka
2006
Seth Jason Beitler Fine Arts Gallery, Miami
2013
LETO Gallery, Warsaw
2017
National Art Gallery, Sopot
2019
Milan Dobeš Museum, Ostrava
AP Atelier Josef Pleskot, Prague
2021
Nanazenit Gallery, Warsaw
2023
Beta16 Gallery, Warsaw
Selected group exhibitions:
1989
Avantgarde Natan Fyodorovsky Gallery, West Berlin
1992
Polnisches Institut Berlin, Berlin
1996
Willy-Brandt-Haus, Berlin
1998
Münchenbryggeriet-Münchensalen, Stockholm
2000
Leonhard Klosa Gallery, Varrelbusch
Studio Gallery, Warsaw
Museum of Contemporary Art, Radom
2001
Art Center Gallery EL, Elbląg
2003
Center of Polish Sculpture, Orońsko
Seth Jason Beitler Fine Arts Gallery, Miami
Mondriaanhuis, Amersfoort, Holland
2004
Kaigondori Gallery, Contemporary Art Space, Osaka
Municipal Gallery Arsenal, Poznań
The City Art Gallery in Łódź
George L. Sturman Museum of Fine Art, Miami
2005
National Museum, Szczecin
2007
The Palace of Fine Arts, Krakow
2009
Komart Gallery, Bratislava
Märkisches Museum, Berlin
2010
Masovian Centre for Contemporary Art „Elektrownia”, Radom
2011
National Art Gallery, Sopot
Dům umění, Ostrava
BWA Contemporary Art Gallery, Katowice
2014
Milan Dobeš Múzeum, Bratislava
2017
Kunstmuseum Stuttgart
National Art Gallery, Sopot
2020
Milan Dobeš Museum, Ostrava
2022
National Art Gallery, Sopot
2024
Centre of Contemporary Art in Znaki Czasu, Torun
2025
Participation in the exhibition:
Milan Dobeš. A Celebration of Colour, Light and Movement
Olomouc Museum of Art, Olomouc, Czech Republic
20 III – 07 IX 2025
Olomouc Museum of Art presents a retrospective exhibition of Milan Dobeš (1929), Slovak painter, graphic artist, creator of installations and objects. The artist's works are shown among the works of the most important representatives of geometric abstraction and kinetic art.
Artists: Milan Dobeš, Getulio Alviani, Bernard Aubertin, Alberto Biasi, Olle Bærtling, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Milan Grygar, Ewerdt Hilgemann, Edoardo Landi, Richard Paul Lohse, Julio Le Parc, Franҫois Morellet, Andrzej Nowacki, Ivan Picelj, Bridget Riley, Jeffrey Steele, Miloš Urbásek, Viktor Vasarely, Ludwig Wilding
Exhibition open from March 20 to September 7, 2025
Curators: Gina Renotière, Ivan Jančár
Muzeum umění Olomouc / Olomouc Museum of Art
Denisova 47, 771 11 Olomouc, Czech Republic
more about the exhibition: www.muo.cz
Web:
The article about Andrzej Nowacki's work on the portal dedicated to concrete art „Arte Concreta – Ein Blog für Konkrete Kunst und mehr…”:
arte-concreta.com

Participation in the exhibition:
Jiří Šigut / Past and future presences
The Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava
22 I – 23 III 2025
The Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava showcases the work of Czech artist Jiří Šigut (*1960) from 1985 to the present. The starting point for the artist's experiments is a reflection on the photographic medium and the ways it is experienced in space and time. Šigut's paintings are a unique record of the perception of digital photography through its detailing and artistic transformation in the tradition of concrete art.
In addition to the artist’s works, the exhibition presents works by such artists as Beti Bricelj, John Cage, Milan Dobeš, Camille Graeser, Richard Paul Lohse, Manfred Mohr, Andrzej Nowacki and Bridget Riley.
Exhibition open from January 22 to March 23, 2025
Curator: Petr Vaňous
The Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava / Galerie výtvarného umění v Ostravě
Jurečkova 9, 702 00 Ostrava 1
more about the exhibition: www.gvuo.cz
2024
Participation in the exhibition:
New Generation and Classics from Wojciech Fibak’s Collection
Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Torun
28 VI 2024 – 5 I 2025
The exhibition „New Generation and Classics from Wojciech Fibak’s Collection” showcases over 200 works by Polish artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. It features pieces by renowned figures such as Andrzej Wróblewski, Magdalena Abakanowicz and Wojciech Fangor, alongside works from younger artists, including Ewa Juszkiewicz, Karolina Jabłońska and Agata Kus. The exhibition highlights the dialogue between generations, emphasizing both differences and unexpected connections in their art.
Exhibition open from June 28, 2024 to Januar 5, 2025
Curator: Krzysztof Stanisławski
Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu
ul. Wały gen. Sikorskiego 13, Toruń
more about the exhibition: csw.torun.pl
Participation in the exhibition:
Polská Abstrakce & Svět / Polish Abstract & World
Gong Gallery, Ostrava
12 III – 18 VIII 2024
The exhibition draws on the Polish artistic tradition from the 1920s to the present, while placing it in an international context.
Works by leading representatives of the Polish avant-garde - Henryk Stażewski, Władysław Strzemiński, Henryk Berlewi – are shown in dialogue with works by prominent Western artists such as Albert Gleizes, Hans Arp, Theo van Doesburg, Auguste Herbin, Sonia Delaunay and Jean Gorin.
Polish art of the second half of the 20th century is presented by artists such as Wojciech Fangor, Kajetan Sosnowski, Jerzy Nowosielski and Ryszard Winiarski.
The exhibition shows an extensive cross-section of Nowacki's work, over 20 reliefs – from his early geometric compositions to his most recent works.
The exhibition open from March 12 to August 18, 2024
Curators: Jan Světlík, Zdeněk Sklenář
Gong Gallery
Ruská 2993, 700 30 Ostrava-Vítkovice
more about the exhibition: dolnivitkovice.cz
Individual exhibition:
On the Edge of the Symmetry. Reliefs of Andrzej Nowacki
Beta16 Gallery in Warsaw
2 XII 2023 – 5 IV 2024
The exhibition „On the Edge of the Symmetry. Reliefs of Andrzej Nowacki” at the Beta16 Gallery presents the artist's works from recent years.
„The magic of Nowacki’s reliefs consists in the balance which is nurtured ever so subtly between order and its dynamic disruption. In many of his recent paintings, the symmetrical structure of the composition is broken by the rhythmical gradient of colours on the sides of the slats.
The painting becomes the quintessential moment of 'being on the edge', of balancing in a short-lived symmetrical equilibrium between one and another facet of the painted relief.”
The exhibition open from December 2, 2023 to April 5, 2024
Beta16 Contemporary Art Gallery
ul. Wilcza 18, 00-532 Warsaw
more about the exhibition: beta16.pl
More information about the works:
an.infoart@gmail.com