Born on 28 May 1952 in Przasnysz, Poland. He studied art education and pedagogy at the University of Gdansk from 1972-73. He then continued his studies from 1973-78 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk and the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, graduating with honours. In 1980 Niksinski received a nine-month art scholarship from the Austrian Federal Minister of Science and Research and in 1987 a scholarship from the Polish Ministry of Culture.
It was a fascinating discovery that the Pole Jan Niksinski made around 1985 on the coast of Bulgaria when he took black and white photographs of barren sticks on porous rocky ground. Elements emerged in the real world of things that he had previously only consciously perceived in his own, at least partially abstract, artificial world of forms.
He presented his drawings at the Nuremberg Triennial three years ago and his paintings and collages at the Varlsella Gallery in 1986; now he is showing paintings at Schmidt-Bank (until 16 September) and drawings at Faber-Castell in Stein (3 August to 28 September): Jan Niksinski from Warsaw, guest of the Institute of Modern Art.
In conversation, Jan Niksinski repeatedly returns to the fact that his work should not be too closely associated with language and that he cannot really do this. The concern is well-founded, because it is the kind of art that hovers in the middle between figuration and abstraction.
Two interesting exhibitions are presented at the BWA “Piwnice” Gallery in Kielce. The first one, an individual exhibition, was proposed by the 35-year-old Jan Niksiński, a searching artist, but with an already established style, fluent in graphics. He is one of the best-educated Polish graphic designers – he studied in Gdansk, Warsaw, Vienna, worked as an assistant, in Salzburg, and more than that, he cooperated with Polish and Austrian publishing houses, had individual exhibitions in West Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia; West Berlin. He is currently one of the leading Polish graphic designers.
Warsaw stays on the margin, it only appears on a couple of pictures using mixed technique – showing buildings’ facades, hallways, and dark courtyards. Jan Niksiński, born in 1952 in Przasnysz, does have a studio in the Polish capital, but he is neither a painter of the city, nor a realist.
Reality has many faces and an artist like Jan Niksinski (he) also finds new ones at Galerie Varisella: the vision of a landscape is abruptly interrupted by a sudden wedge that extends over the edge of the picture and, both sobered and astonished, one recognises one part of the landscape as spatially elevated, the other as flat.
It is with real pleasure that I take the opportunity to write these few sentences about the works of Mr Jan Niksiński. They are striking for their excellent technique, precision of execution. However, this is not empty virtuosity. In each of the works we can see an attempt to express those dark and difficult contents, which in the European tradition have for centuries constituted the true value, the humanism of art simply.
…The works of Jan Niksinski, who, incidentally, is also a participant in the Nuremberg Drawing Triennial, are also characterised by independence. Currently, Niksinski’s work is exhibited extensively at the Varissel Gallery. What stands out are mainly the drawings of this young Pole, in which fears, longings and dangers are captured in an expressive way.
He once came to Nuremberg as a good friend of the first city artist Łukasik; he was recently honoured by Heinz Neidel’ in the Institute’s “Mitteilungen”; now he is present with many drawings and collages in the Varisella Gallery (Blumenthalstraße 7 – until 15 February): Jan Niksinski from Warsaw.
Read MoreAn artist keeps his distance from people and the environment (1986)
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