ABOVE: Opening of the exhibition “Surrealism – Painting”, 2026
The Face as a Map of Emotions
Broken into planes of colour and seen in profile and full face at once, the faces in Bartosz Wysocki’s paintings are hard to mistake for anything else. The Wrocław-based painter combines the language of Cubism, the discipline of geometry and the imagination of Surrealism, and his work is exhibited in Poland and internationally.
“I paint faces because a face is the most individual thing we have – no two are alike. You cannot hide emotions on it: they show in a glance, in the tension of a cheek, in the twist of a mouth,” says the artist. This simple observation is the key to all of his work. In his paintings the face becomes a map of emotions: taken apart, rearranged and put back together to reveal what usually happens beneath the surface.
From chisel and gold to canvas
Bartosz Wysocki was born in 1958 in Poland. He graduated from the Wojciech Gerson Secondary School of Fine Arts in Warsaw, specialising in furniture making, woodcarving and interior finishing, and went on to study at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. For many years he worked professionally as a goldsmith and jeweller. That experience shows in his paintings: in the precise outlines, the carefully fitted fields of colour and the gold accents. Today he devotes himself fully to painting and works in his studio in Wrocław.
How a painting is made
The starting point is almost always a human face. In the spirit of Cubism, the artist breaks the portrait down into geometric fields of colour and encloses them with a strong outline. He then reassembles them in a rhythm of stripes, arcs and circles, so that we see a single face from several sides at once. Over this structure lies a layer of Surrealist play. An eye appears where the mouth should be, flowers replace hair, the moon replaces a face. Familiar motifs begin to tell new stories. Alongside portraits he paints embracing couples, nudes, animals and paraphrases of old masters.
Wysocki works in a mixed technique he developed himself. Its basis is acrylic paint and acrylic media on canvas. He sets smooth, opaque planes against textures: rubbed-back surfaces, transparent glazes, stamped structures and gold accents. Colour is not meant to describe the world but to convey a state of mind, while geometry brings order to the chaos of experience. Each painting is unique, painted by hand and signed by the artist. Most of his canvases measure 100 × 70 cm, but his studio also produces large horizontal compositions of 70 × 140 cm.
Exhibitions in Poland and abroad
2026 was an exceptionally busy year for the artist. His paintings could be seen in solo and group exhibitions in Poland and abroad, from intimate formats to monumental canvases. He also presented his work at the “Bliska Sztuka” art fair in Wrocław. An important role in his path was played by Barbara Krupa-Kapuśniak, director of the Przestrzeń Gallery and the Regional Museum. She discovered the artist, believed in his painting and today recommends working with him. His paintings are in private collections in Europe, the USA and Japan, as well as in Australia, Saudi Arabia and Argentina.
About the artist
Bartosz Wysocki (b. 1958, Poland) is a painter. He graduated from the Wojciech Gerson Secondary School of Fine Arts in Warsaw and studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He works in Wrocław in a mixed technique (acrylic on canvas), combining Cubism, geometry and Surrealism. His works are in private collections on four continents.
• Website: www.bartoszwysocki.pl
• Email: bartekchabo@interia.pl
• Phone: +48 575 786 803
