Visitors are invited to an exhibition featuring posters by Ryszard Kaja, one of Poland's best known poster artists and scenic designers. The exhibition held in the Open-Air Gallery near Aleje Ujazdowskie in Warsaw will be open from 12 July to 9 August 2017.
The exhibition features sightseeing (tourist) posters from the "Polska" (Poland) series, and other works focusing on culture, made at various stages of Ryszard Kaja’s artistic career.
The artist has been creating posters for more than a dozen years, often in cooperation with institutions such as music and drama theatres, galleries and independent theatres. Most of his works focus on cultural events: festivals, shows and exhibitions. He is the author of the large and still expanding series of tourist posters from the "Polska" series. They are not only road maps of the country and its culture, but also of the history and aesthetics of Polish poster art. "Polska" is also an encoded record of his personal memories.
Before he devoted his life to poster art, he worked in theatre – the artist was the main scenic designer in the Grand Theatre Łódź, in the Opera in the Castle in Szczecin, and subsequently, for many years, in the Grand Theatre in Poznań. He is the author of nearly 200 scenic designs – mainly opera and ballet, but also theatre and film sets.
His scenic designs have always been paintinglike, posters drawn like illustrations, while graphics and paintings – theatrical. This synthesis of genres is characteristic of his work.
The artist was a juror on several biennial poster contests, his works were displayed on many exhibitions in Poland and abroad (including Germany, Austria, Belarus, Bolivia, Macedonia, USA, Great Britain, India, Turkey and New Zealand). In 2016, Municipal Gallery Arsenał in Poznań housed his first retrospective exhibition.
He occasionally creates oil paintings, but prefers the domain of graphic arts.
