Bio

PL

Maciej Osika was born in Poland in 1983,he graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. Involved in photography since 1996.Exhibit and published  his art work in Poland and Europe.

tekst: Krzysztof Jurecki

No doubt, Maciej Osika is a young, talented artist. What is more, his works have been included into prestigious private collections (Grazyna Kulczyk) and state collections (the Lower Silesia Zacheta)

He has presented his works at one-man exhibitions in Poland and  Europe.

What has been a foothold  of his photographic style? Camouflaging his own personality, dressing-up, search for his new self? Further, he has referred to glossy fashion magazines and the stereotypes of feminine glamour propagated by mass culture.

He has not been a fighter, attempting to fit into the system and find there his own existential idiom.

One could question his idealized female or androgenic self-portraits  being computer processed simulation, not the reality  if not for the three photographs depicting a striped-off demon who has destroyed the embellished image. It should be appreciated that he has been capable of undermining the trivial/artificial mirage of beauty. The works by Osika offer a good example of Polish digital pictures. His artificially created worlds, reflected in black-and-white and color photography, have been well-aimed.

It is interesting how long he will persevere in projecting various states of his personality and how long he will manage to mislead the viewers. An answer to this question is likely to determine the place of his mannerism oriented photography in the most recent history of the genre.

Osika has been mainly focusing on his face, though he has not been avoiding female silhouettes in long gowns or images of walking Christ. He has been skillfully untangling intricacies of art history, following an extremely bumpy road marked with achievements by the greatest artists, such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Marcel Duchamp or Witkacy.

How long he is going to persevere in his artistic pursuit will depend on his creative potential and trust in his creative powers.