BIO
In his figuration and fieldwork, Jan Kubisa draws on archival imagery and plein-air observation to compose scenes where people and landscapes speak with equal weight. Working primarily in oil paints and in mixed media on paper, his interest lies in transposing found moments, using color, scale, and painterly logic to alter the register away from documentation, and push it toward a new, timeless encounter. The relational structures that shape human connection and presence are central. The result is a reconfiguration of what still matters most, precisely because it has no established time.
Kubisa was born in 1983 in Krynica-Zdrój, Poland. His sensitivity to spatial arrangement and emotional proximity emerged from his early immersion in contrasts. His childhood, spent among forests and mountains, unfolded between the extremes of harsh winters and verdant summers.
Trained in Archaeology at the University of Warsaw, with a Master’s degree in the anthropology of world religions, Kubisa grounds his work in universals of human history; experience with excavation and archives informs his approach to cultural motifs and imagery. He lives and works in Warsaw.
STATEMENT
I draw inspiration from photographic archives, drawn to what is strange or surprising. My scenes often explore tension that slips out from beneath the surface, heightened through color and composition. I most often focus on what happens among people, in relational shifts that transcend time. These are often clearest when glimpsed in a world that has already passed, and has become almost like a foreign land to us, today. The source image often offers a frame which may be compositional, or even accidental. What draws me in might be as small as a gesture or proximity that resists a clear narrative. I also paint in response to my solitary mountain walks, where I encounter the beauty and danger of the landscape on emotional terms.
A sense of eeriness or unworldliness is central to my work, blurring boundaries between the conscious and the subconscious. Reaching into the subconscious allows me to work in a highly intuitive way that often surprises even me.
