ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
[…] From the very beginning, Elżbieta Kuraj in her work has explored the problem of matter both as a reference to the material world and as a carrier of supramaterial meanings. Her work grows out of the great trend of the Polish avant-garde of the 1980s, characterised by an uncompromising attitude to the world, aggressive colour and expressive form. Kuraj draws on this tradition, makes creative use of the current experience of contemporary graphics, but at the same time, from the beginning, she sets her painting on an individual and original path of development. […]
Małgorzata Malinowska-Klimek
kurator – Galeria Extravagance | Sosnowieckie Centrum Sztuk
(olej, akryl, suchy pigment, 100×120, 2022)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Prof. Elżbieta Kuraj, PhD – graduate of the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. In 1982 she obtained a diploma with honours in book design. She was a co-founder of the Obok Municipal Art Gallery in Teatr Mały in Tychy, which she ran from 1995 to 1999. From 1999 to 2012, she was a teacher at the State School of Arts in Bielsko-Biała. At the same time, in 1999 she started to work as a research and didactic employee at the Silesian University in Katowice, Faculty of Arts in Cieszyn. In 2012, she was awarded the academic title of Professor. From 2012 to 2016, she was deputy director for artistic and scientific affairs at the Institute of Art. For 22 years of her work at the IS, she led the Painting Studio.
In her artistic activity, she has repeatedly served as a juror in art competitions, has been involved in the organisation of symposia, painting exhibitions and interdisciplinary art exhibitions, has collaborated with the IYMC in Oświęcim in the implementation of several art projects presented in galleries and museum centres in Poland and Germany, and with the Email Art Foundation in the Czech Republic in the implementation of Czech-Polish EU projects.
Creatively engaged in painting and artistic enamel. She has had 71 individual exhibitions in Poland and abroad, taken part in numerous group exhibitions and won 23 prizes and awards for her paintings, scholarships of the Minister of Culture and Art (1983,1988) and awards for scientific and organisational work at the University of Silesia.