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Born in Lenczyca, Poland, Wojciech (Voytek) Nowakowski has lived in Italy and now lives in Calgary. Lenczyca is a place with a thousand year history, old castles, churches and buildings.
Voytek started to paint when he was eight or ten years old. While exploring old buildings and ruins of castles, looking for antiques and treasures, he found an old box of paints and old paintings. The beauty of these old things charmed Voytek and he started to collect and appreciate them. He had the opportunity to visit the museum regularly, which was located in the castle, to admire the old furniture, sculpture and of course, the paintings. Those experiences in Lenczyca had a huge impact on his work and life. The darkness of dungeons and legends about the greatest guardian of Lenczyca's treasure, the Boruta Devil appears frequently on his canvas. From that time until today Voytek uses oils and the Master's techniques, which were influenced by Rembrandt, Rubens and Van Dyk, to create his own magical world from his imagination and reams about life and death in an atmosphere of mysteries. Nowakowski is a professed admirer of the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn. Like Rembrandt, Voytek imbues the painted surface with an illusory inner light. This light bathes the landscape in most of his work, creating a sense of divinity and grandeur. His work is seen in the private collection of Pope John Paul II and in the Vatican Museum, as well as in the private collection of former Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark. He studied at the College of Fine and Decorative Arts, Lodz, Poland. |
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