Jacek Lipowczan

Jacek Lipowczan signs his paintings "JALI". Jacek Lipowczan was born in Istebna in Cieszyn Silesia. He graduated in 1976 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Faculty of Graphic Arts, in the studio of Professor Mieczysław Wejman. Since 1981 Jacek Lipowczan has lived outside Poland, first in Sweden and then in Australia. In Sydney he worked at the American animation studio "Hanna Barbera", where he designed scenes for individual films. After returning from Australia to Europe, to Germany, he worked as a graphic designer, art director and illustrator for publishers and advertising agencies. In 2004 he decided to devote himself exclusively to painting. In defiance of today's art, in which one avant-garde chases another, the group of artists painting in a similar style is growing from year to year. Jacek Lipowczan joined them and became a member of the international association Society of Art of Imagination in London, whose honorary patron was the well-known Austrian Surrealist, the late Prof. Ernst Fuchs, and he also belongs to the "Visionary Art" group founded by Otto Rapp in Vienna. Since then JALI has taken an active part in artistic life. He has presented his works at exhibitions in the United Kingdom (including Mall Galleries in London), Switzerland (Giger Museum in Gruyères), Germany, Austria (including the Fantastenmuseum in Vienna), Poland, France (including three times at the Salon d'Automne, Grand Palais in Paris), Italy, Denmark, Spain and the USA. His works have been published many times in albums: in Denmark, "Imaginaire 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9" and "Dante – the Divine Comedy"; the Lexikon der Fantastischen Künstler in Vienna; in Poland, the album of Polish painting 2019, "Contemporary National Iconography" (National Museum in Kielce), and the album "Artists Creating the Image of Polonia". Jacek's painting style can be described as Surrealist-Fantastic Realism, although the subject matter of his paintings is also deeply based on contemporary social and political events. His paintings are a synthesis of the present, whether Polish or international. Jacek Lipowczan is also the initiator of the "Magical Dreams" touring exhibition, important for this current and held every two years, organised by the Bator Gallery in Szczyrk. It is now in its fourth edition. The exhibition takes place in several galleries or museums in Poland, as well as in galleries and museums in Austria and Germany. It always involves around 30 artists from Poland, Denmark, Germany, France, the USA, Italy, Ukraine and Russia.