Roman Starak “ponad czasem”

Galeria RONDO SZTUKI

40-121 Katowice
Rondo im. Gen. Jerzego Ziętka 1
www.rondosztuki.pl 

vernissage 5.02.2018 g. 18:00

exhibition 6.02. - 28.02.2018

Roman Starak is one of those artists whose work – while remaining beyond time – requires even more time today to be fully appreciated and understood. And still, it eludes full understanding, its power lying in its resistance to being reduced to words. This art cannot be dissected into the form and content and then interpreted and locked in a drawer.

Roman Starak was an artist and man who did not resort to empty words and gestures – quite the opposite: for him, the reduction of formal means constituted the essence and power of the dialogue with another person. Through diligent observation of the harsh reality of the post-war Silesia, he created his own iconography that balanced between emotionality and contemplation, figurativeness and abstraction, two - and three-dimensionality – each of these notions, originally associated with the form, reveals metaphors of the place itself and our existence in it. Roman Starak was convinced that his art must carry out its dialogue with the viewer without any help from him, and be its own commentary.

Today, we can see how right he was.

Grzegorz Hańderek

Roman Starak (1929–2016),

graduated from the Faculty of Graphic Arts in Katowice, at the time a branch of the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts. Since the graduation in 1956 until his retirement, he worked as a teacher at his home Academy. In 1996 he obtained the title of Professor of Fine Arts. In 2002-2005 he worked at the Institute of Art of the University of Silesia in Cieszyn. From 2012, he ran the Studio of Letterpress Printing at the Faculty of Graphic Art of the University of Science and Art in Katowice. He concentrated on graphic techniques. From the post-war period he was connected with Silesia, particularly with Zabrze – where he lived and created – and Katowice, where he worked. He took part in numerous individual and collective exhibition in Poland and abroad. Roman Starak's works are in the collections of museums in Warsaw, Bytom, Bielsko-Biała, Wrocław, Katowice and Brazil, Macedonia and Canada. He was awarded many prestigious prizes and decorations, including: The Order of Polonia Restituta, Gold Cross of Merit and the Commemorative Medal of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. In 2014 he was granted the title of Honorary Professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice.

Exhibition in the accompanying program of the International Print Triennial - Krakow 2018