Janusz Wrobel - Photographer

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For four decades, professional art photographer Janusz Wrobel honed his skills in isolating the pure essence of scenery and objects. This approach earned him a major international award and his images have been used in many academic and educational publications across five continents. By extracting key elements in natural landscapes, he exposes underlying processes that build these environments. A long time adventure traveler, he presents the “big picture”: large, immaculately composed images, each with complex and intertwining story lines. His work is represented in private and corporate collections, in Canada, Poland, Great Britain, Germany, Japan and USA.

 

Artist Statement

I have been attracted to many facets of photography during my life, but a new gravity emerged in the last six years. My lifelong intimate relationship with the natural world reached a point where I had to find a new formula to communicate my experience. I realized that the concept of time and space is fundamentally different when seen from the natural world’s perspective, where the abstract scale and unimaginable momentum of changes that might already be in motion, or beyond their turning points, are extremely difficult for us to register. Although natural science and its findings are well adapted to these dimensions, science lacks the tools of expression, revealing a gap between its findings and its effectiveness to stimulate change. My work is an attempt to bridge this gap. Although it could contribute to public discourse about environmental challenges, I prefer to concentrate on the difficulties we have in facing the philosophy of nature and in accepting the concept of our accommodation within a living system upon which we are so dependent.  

My work focuses entirely on landscapes and the natural world of Ontario. It's not a specific place that interests me, but rather the idea of it. My imagery does not rely on sentimentality because the complex and dynamic systems of nature are better served by a challenging dialogue. In my work I give central stage to the richness of visual experience, while fully relying on the credibility of my medium. I avoid theories and I prefer to stimulate all the senses, both at the creating and receiving ends.

Bio

Born In 1951, Poland. M. Sc. in Technology of Photographic Materials, 1975.
Co-founding member of “Format” Art Group, 72-75. Artistic Commissioner of Wroclaw Photographic Society, 73-75. Associated photographer at 4 International Jazz Festivals and International Open Theatre Festivals 72-75.
Manager and co-owner of professional photography studios and processing labs, Poland, 1976-81.
Production manager of large commercial photography studio and photo processing plant in Mississauga, Ontario, 1983-94.
Owner and manager of PhotoDot, a company involved in digital product photography and catalogue production, Mississauga, 1995-05.
Lives in Dundas, Ontario, where he shares Hillcrest Studio with his wife and professional textile artist, Lorraine Roy.

Past Exhibitions

Representational and conceptual works shown in 1968-76. Numerous “Format” Art Group touring public exhibitions of work in Wroclaw, Warsaw, Dresden, Kiev, Brno, Geneva 1972-75. International Drawing Triennial in Wroclaw, Poland, 1974.

Recent Exhibitions

RECENT EXHIBITIONS

2010 Janusz Wrobel and Floyd Elzinga” February, Petroff Gallery, Toronto
         Shoreline Studies series “The Artist Project Toronto”
         “Six Degrees of Perception” April, McMaster Gallery, Dundas

2009 “The Artist Project Toronto 09” exhibition

2008 “Janusz Wrobel & Lorraine Roy” Conservatory for the Arts, Hamilton
         “Spring Sale”, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton
         “Flow” Janusz Wrobel, Carnegie Gallery, Dundas
          Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Toronto
          Carriage House Gallery, “Ontario Unbound Series”, Midland
          Three artist exhibition, Petroff Gallery, Toronto

2007 “Ontario Unbound” Jordan Art Gallery, Jordan, Ontario

2007 “Naked and Unadorned”, group show, Carnegie Gallery, Dundas, ON

2005 Juried Exhibition, Homer Watson House and Gallery Kitchener, ON

2004-5 ‘Satin and Steel’: A two-person exhibition with Lorraine Roy
             Rebecca Gallery, Toronto, ON
             Latcham Gallery, Stouffville, ON

2004 Grimsby Art Gallery Juried Exhibition, Grimsby, ON

2004 ‘Sylvan Spirits’: Three Artists
          Homer Watson House and Gallery Kitchener, ON

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