Stanisław Koguciuk and Jan Uścimiak: While the Farmer Sleeps, His Crops Keep Growing

The style, technique and colour of their works place them within the folk-art tradition, yet their subject matter reaches beyond the boundaries customarily assigned to this kind of practice. Both artists are exceptionally alert and perceptive observers of the world around us. Their apt yet witty comments on current events, politics and the state of society, combined with a folk aesthetic, form an unusual and unique whole. The artists themselves are delightful, very modest people devoted to their work.

The exhibition catalogue includes essays on the work of Stanisław Koguciuk and Jan Uścimiak by Jagoda Barczyńska and Agata Mendrychowska. Both authors, who are art historians, firmly believe that an encounter with the work of Koguciuk and Uścimiak will interest viewers, and I recommend reading their texts. I also recommend the conversation with the artists conducted by Jan Janiak, an ethnologist and doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Philosophy and History of the University of Łódź. 

While the Farmer Sleeps, His Crops Keep Growing is a phrase taken from one of Stanisław Koguciuk’s paintings. It is my pleasure to invite you to see what has grown from Stanisław Koguciuk’s and Jan Uścimiak’s love of art.