Jacek Yerka was born in 1952 in Toruń, Poland. He was born into an artistic family with both his parents graduates from a local Fine Art Academy. His earliest memories were of paints, inks, paper, pencils, erasers and brushes. As a child, Yerka loved to draw and make sculptures. He hated playing outside, and preferred to sit down with a pencil, creating and exploring his own world. This difference between the other children in his primary school led to social problems with his peers and Yerka describes his primary school life as being a “grey, sometimes horrifying reality.” However, Yerka later became “untouchable” in his high school due to his clever sketches of the school’s worst bullies.
The artist graduated in 1976 from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Nicolas Copernicus University in Toruń. He specialised in graphic art. During the first few years after graduation he exhibited posters, for example at The Biennial Exhibition of Polish Posters in Katowice in 1977 and 1979, at the international biennial exhibitions in Lahti and Warsaw, among others. Since 1980 he devoted himself completely to painting.
Basing on precise painting techniques, taking pattern from former masters like Jan van Eyck or Hieronymus Bosch but mainly on his unlimited imagination he creates surrealistic compositions, particularly admired by enthusiasts of sci-fi in all varieties. He inspired the fantasy writer Harlon Ellison to write 30 short stories, which along with Yerka’s pictures constituted the publication entitled “Mind Fields”. The same American publisher “Morpheus International” released the album “The Fantastic Art of Jacek Yerka”.
In 1995 the artist was awarded the prestigious World Fantasy Award for the best artist. He exhibits in Poland and abroad (in Germany, France and USA among others), being an esteemed representative of the science fiction stream of art. His paintings have recently inspired film-makers. The artist has been invited to cooperate in the production of an American movie “Strawberry Fields” in which his paintings was to be accompanied by the Beatles’ music.
The painting above is called “The City is Landing” and shows Yerka’s style to advantage. A meticulously detailed fantastic landscape, painstakingly rendered, well composed and with luscious attention to colour and form. It is a delicious excursion into the land of fantasy and with a meaning that can be extremely personal for each person who views the work.
The-City-is-Landing...
ReplyDeleteWhat does it mean?
This picture for me...
I think there are cities very comfortable for us. They are so harmonious that it feels as if they were always. So, as if once appeared. With its houses, bridges, canals etc....
And such sity just finding the better place for itself... and landing there!