With brush in hand, Janikowsky leads us through new worlds, crossing the confines of reality, in a fantasy that exercises the muscles of the imagination. The boundary between the animate and inanimate gets blurred, allowing both to exceed the threshold and intertwine with their opposites. Inert materials are lined with organic skin and visceral entrails and, by assimilating their characteristics, become conscious of their own. In turn, humans undergo an architectural mutation.

Motion freezes in time. A static and immeasurable moment, in which all hours are possible, even simultaneously. The past and the future become concomitant, any previous future, whatever that may be. It is a time of provocativeness where the steam engines propel Victorian engineering towards science-fiction. The latest technology is made of outdated equipment.

Janikowsky shows us that opposites are elements of the same equation. Therefore, his style has something of Renaissance and Retrocession, Constructive and Destructive, Futuristic and Gothic. Something that is mechanical as well as organic, it is somewhat so disturbing, but yet serene.

This rhythm of contrasts is the equation needed for movement and change. The journey is then a continual metaphor, the driving force that crosses its own themes and compositions. Its energy breaks the solid gothic architecture, by making the stones float, breaking the laws of physics, destroying the barrier of time and space. In the end, Jaroslaw paints travel through time.

It is a world that is so different but is yet so similar to our own, which leads us to establish the necessary parallels. A comparison of our existence with alternative life forms; which reflect our choices, that have shaped our history and influence our future. Janikowsky introduces us to an era in which events have taken a different course from a common existential key point. A satirical beauty, demonstrating that not only that there are other worlds, but they also coexist since its conception. Moreover, the power that reigns in those worlds is the power of imagination.

By Pedro Boaventura • Excerpt from Masters of Contemporary Fine Art - Volume 3

 

Jaroslaw Jasnikowski – Polish artist, painter born in 1976 in Legnica. He has been engaged in painting since 1991. His first works are composed of science-fiction art. Nevertheless, in 1998 under the influence of an exhibition of the painter Wojtek Siudmak in his own hometown and meetings with the very artist, Jasnikowski started experimenting with surrealism. 

Meanwhile, his paintings have a darkling and psychedelic character. Notwithstanding, the artist’s works more and more refer to technology: flaying enginery, steam locomotives or clock mechanism and his growing interest in Gothic architecture. His art takes form of characteristic features for steampunk as time goes by. The artist’s painting starts out to be more thematically unified. Jasnikowski crates a history of “Alternative Worlds” – a fantastic reality where different laws of physics are expressed. He weaves a story about the world which is broken on millions drifting islands in space, where the biggest sense for human beings is a need to travel. The painter crates huge surrealistic machineries which monumentally show a challenge for the world but at the same time express a pride of their constructors. 

Jasnikowski also pays attention to the meaning of time and passing in his works as the factors to be taken account. However, time in his paintings concerns different values and features. It is not linear, not to be counted and frequently gets material attributes. Jaroslaw Jasnikowski is interested in  physics and astronomy, hence allows himself for freeform manipulation of the science laws building it from the beginning. In the artist’s works there also appears reference to philosophy, theology, as well as history.

Jasnikowski also tells about himself that he is both a storyteller and painter. Though, he does not find himself to be a world creator who can be watched on his canvas. The artist only serves a role of an observer and chronicler. His paintings are like windows which viewers can look through another world -  “Alternative World”. Jasnikowski believes that these worlds can be the endless numbers, but  his passion concerns the only particular one.

Jaroslaw Jasnikowski is a very popular and well thought artist  in Poland. He is also the most important and well known author of Polish steampunk in painting. He has created the most recognizing style, hence his works are characterized as an excellent atelier. The very painter pays a serious attention to the care of details, a proper matching of colors and a right composition. 

Jasnikowski has achieved success in the field of an individual and collective exhibitions as his paintings appear all over the world.