Julian Stanczak Poland/USA, 1928-2017

Julian Stanczak is recognized as a pioneer of optical painting (Op Art) in the 1960s, had evolved by the Seventies into a virtuoso of color and light; and these paintings are masterworks of geometric minimalism.  His early life was marked by enormous personal struggle, and equally by his commitment to an uplifted outlook informed by art and music. Forced into a labor camp in Siberia during World War II, he began his art-making in as a teenage refugee in Uganda where he sought to transmit his experience of the stunning light and landscape of East Africa. Stanczak's various hues and proximate colors are modified only slightly and create a beautiful and subtle experience.  

 

His process was complex - he used tape masks in which colors were systematically added and unveiled in layers. While profoundly methodical, Stanczak did not use sketches or studies - he relied on his intuitive understanding of color and balance when making his work.