Slawomir Elsner

Slawomir Elsner (*1976 in Poland) lives and works in Berlin. He has gained international recognition for his meticulous colored pencil drawings and extensive watercolor works. In his series “Imaginäre Erinnerung (Imaginary Memory)”, which so far comprises about 150 works and is still ongoing, the artist has been focusing since 2014 on canonical works of art history, which he poetically reflects in a unique technique of overlapping color line mesh as colored pencil drawings on paper. Recently, some of his works of his renowned "Just Watercolors" series, realized on handmade paper, have also referenced iconic paintings, thus transcending their inherent self-referentiality based on their potentiated degree of abstraction.  The complex, delicate and meticulously executed works on paper blur the boundaries between drawing and painting, being both and at the same time something entirely third. They seem not only to finally dissolve the art-historically long-standing paragone between disegno and colore, but to make it entirely obsolete. Slawomir Elsner skillfully fuses painting and drawing; he is a line painter, oscillating between coincidence and constructedness, between blur and precision. 

Slawomir Elsner’s works can be found in reputable collections around the world, including KiCo Foundation, permanent loan for the Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany; Pinakothek der Moderne Munich, Germany; Rubell Family Collection, Miami, USA; Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte, USA; Roche Collection, Basel, Switzerland; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Adrastus Collection, Arévalo, Spain; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany.