“My desire is to express mystery through art, triggering recognition within the viewer. The Art becomes the mirror reflecting the artist, beyond boundaries of beliefs, race, politics and language.”
— Janusz Gilewicz
A native of Poland, Janusz, aka Yanusz Gilewicz, was born in 1959 into an artistic family and has been devoted to painting and visual arts since early childhood. Inspired by his grandfather, also a painter, Yanusz discovered at an early age his ability to draw and paint.
A BBC story of Leonardo da Vinci’s life fired up his imagination, and at the age of nine, he decided to become a painter. After some dabbling in art schools, Yanusz choose to become an apprentice of artist Jerzy “Trutt” Trutkowski, with whom he studied until 1986.
Yanusz fled communist Poland for Italy to experience with his own eyes the works of his masters Leonardo, Caravaggio, and Botticelli, to name a few. To support himself, he began painting on the city sidewalks, which is called “Madonniari.” One of his paintings caught the attention of movie director Sergio Bergonzelli, who was looking for a painter to create 20 paintings for the film “Blood Delirium” and to coach American actor John Phillip Law to play an artist. While working on the film, Yanusz befriended John Law, who later helped him immigrate to the US.
Upon arriving to the US in 1988 Yanusz continued to pursue his artistic carrier, incorporating his knowledge into the decorative field. He executed mural paintings for restaurants, boutiques, and private residences. In interior work he is best known for a series of “Golden Fish Pond,” a 3D trompe l’oeil painting on wooden and concrete floors. These paintings create a remarkable illusion of fish swimming in a pond of water. Gilewicz focuses his work on creating illusions and impossible paintings often using untraditional surfaces for his paintings.
In the early nineties he was invited to show his work in Japan at the established Itochu Gallery. After spending the better part of two years in Japan, he returned to the US equipped with the added knowledge of Eastern art. From that experience Yanusz has developed an artistic symbiosis of Eastern and Western cultures.
His knowledge of Renaissance techniques and never-ending curiosity allows him to expand and invent a new 4D art form called Sculpted Painting Moving in Time.
Gilewicz says, “My desire is to express mystery and beauty through art while awaking recognition of those qualities in the viewer. The painting then becomes a mirror that awakens the artist and the viewer while transporting each beyond the boundaries of politics, culture, and religion.”
His work has carried him around the world, with numerous solo and group exhibitions in Poland, Italy, Japan, Brazil and the United States. Gilewicz has learned that, through his art, he can share with the viewer his appreciation of beauty, mystery, and harmony.
