I’m going to say from the start of this post, that Beksinski deserves more credit. Although his art now is appreciated, I think that he deserves far more than he has. I only discovered his work a few months ago, and felt like I had been missing out. He painted realistic nightmarish landscapes and creatures, that are often depicted anxiety (Initially at least).

Originally he started doing photography, which would later influence his paintings, as they also had a creepy, gothic quality to them:

As he went through his life he had certain phases, for example one during the 60’s and 70’s where he started painting landscapes (as seen in the first image) as opposed to just figures. Don’t let the dark tones scare you though, he often complained that he felt his work was misinterpreted, a lot of his work was supposed to be comedic, the only painting I have found by him that suggests this to be true could be the image below. Although creepy, the figures seem welcoming, in a weird pug cute way.  He himself was known to be quite a friendly approachable person, something the images he makes would suggest the opposite. But that’s part of the charm of all his work, he has been quoted as saying “I cannot conceive of a sensible statement on painting”. It makes you think, sometimes reflecting on our own lives. I tried to do this in the last project we did, the newspaper monster.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the happiest ending to his life, his wife died and then a year later his son killed himself, Beksinski himself found the body and must have effected him greatly. He pinned an envelope to his wall unopened, which read “For Tomek in case I kick the bucket”.  Then after all that, he was stabbed after denying a friends son some money (Only about £100). As sad as this is, I think he needs to be celebrated more for the paintings that produce awe from anyone who looks at them.

What I like about his work is how free, yet realistic it feels, moreover some of his paintings are just beautiful. But it’s creepy stylised art! When I see stuff like this, it makes me want to improve, I want to get to some sort of level where the stylised creepiness in my work is matched by it’s realism, at the minute it feels like cartoons, which is fine, but when you see work like this it makes me think I can do better, to quote Terrence Fletcher from the movie Whiplash, “There are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job'”.