As an artist, Stanislaw Lewkowicz seeks to overcome obstacles. To him, every restriction imposed on a technique, is an opportunity to explore new possibilities. It allows him to plunge more deeply into his subject matter––this engagement starts out as personal but grows beyond to incorporate universal human themes.
Lewkowicz seeks to fight many presumptions and prejudices that exist in art, towards both subject matter and technique. He loves to play with the limits of different media and textures and create gestures that physically transcend boundaries. Lewkowicz’s unique technique merges photography with lithography, and figuration with abstraction––simultaneously capturing both the literal and conceptual meaning of his work. This technique is central to the meaning of the works: the photographs become the perfect image of personal detachment.
In his work, Lewkowicz conveys nature’s beauty beyond what is visible to the human eye. His compositional choices are simultaneously exuberant and modest. Lewkowicz gives literal titles to his work, such as 'Trees along the water', both reflecting the simplicity of daily life and drawing the viewer into the image. Gazing at one of his works, you can have the impression that you are immersed in the scene––it comes to life. You're no longer looking at a painting: you are standing in the midst of a grove of trees by the water. In his works Stanislaw Lewkowicz makes proposals you cannot refuse: proposals that remind us of spiritual nature and poetic allusions.
Lewkowicz comes from a Jewish Polish family that has its roots in the city of Lviv in the Ukraine and Przemyśl, a city in southeastern Poland. During the Second World War, Lewkowicz’s father was arrested in a raid when he was merely 13-year-old. After his liberation by the American army at the end of the war, Lewkowicz’ father settled at the in South Limburg as stateless citizen. Stanislaw Lewkowicz was born in the Netherlands. After he finished his studies in Utrecht, he continued his education at the Academy of Warsaw, but was forced to leave due to the explosive political situation in. He then travelled for a couple of years through Europe, working as a farm labourer and industrial worker, before settling in Amsterdam where he still lives and works. Throughout his life, Lewkowicz’s diverse body of work has remained cohesive and interconnected: from his work depicting Russian immigrant workers in the midst of Italian tourists (LES BAIGNEURS, Je ne sais plus d’où aller, 2012) to his portraits autumn foliage (Novemberdagen, 2010) to Groenten uit Calcutta (2017), a large installation created during his artist-in-residency in India, which premiered at Unseen photofair in Amsterdam (2017). In addition to his paintings, Lewkowicz’s achievements also include assignments for public spaces, such as his work in Arrival Hall 3 at the Schiphol airport (1995), the mist sculpture for the Dutch Embassy in Berlin (2004) in partnership with the architect Rem Koolhaas, the Starry Sky for the municipality of Veenendaal (2007), the lonely corner in Capelle aan de IJssel (2009) and the one mile long Bells Ribbon in Berkel Rodenrijs (2006-2011).
