Two AFA Katowice graduates in the top ten of Kompas Sztuki ranking
Kompas Sztuki is an award presented by one of the most important Polish dailies, Rzeczpospolita. Martyna Czech was placed in the 4th place, and Maciej Cholewa in the 9th.
‘Martyna Czech (1990) is the winner of the 42nd Bielska Jesień Painting Biennial in 2015, and of Talenty Trójki 2017 competition in the category of visual arts. Each one of her expressive, aggressively-coloured paintings has its history based on facts and refers to the suffering of animals. The perpetrator of violence is always human. The artists gives voice to despair and to harsh disapproval of the human species, including herself as its representative. She is fascinated by extreme emotions: hate and pain, delight and suffering, love, etc. She translates them onto the canvas using the language of art naïf, seemingly created by a child’s hand’, writes Rzeczpospolita.
‘Agata Kus (1987), Paweł Matyszewski (1984) and Maciej Cholewa (1991) are joint winners of the ninth place. They seem to be fascinated by completely distinct themes, however they all revolve around the same problem: the human being and their entanglement in the world, not only their own. (...) Maciej Cholewa, visual artist, author of installations, videos, objects, audio plays and short stories, received an honourable mention of the SZUM magazine in the 2016 competition for the best diploma projects of Academies of Fine Arts. “In my case art means paraphrasing, confabulating and finding meaning in ordinary things and stories,” says the artist. In his project titled Głos małego miasta (Small Town Voice), modelled on a daily paper, he describes a ficticious, typical town and adds stories from his home town Radzionków. As an observer he does not judge but documents certain facts,’ writes Rzeczpospolita.