Sacred art by Zdzislaw Pękalski

Zdzislaw Pękalski, a Bieszczady artist with multiple interests, has been creating for over forty years. He was born in Lviv in 1941. He spent his childhood in Przemyśl. He graduated from the Teacher Training College in Rzeszow, and then from the Institute of Artistic Education at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. 

Since 1964 he has lived in Hoczwi, in the Bieszczady Mountains.He is a co-founder of the Bieszczady Group of Cultural Creators, active since 1978.He does painting, sculpture, graphics and poetry.He is also passionate about collecting, ethnography and archeology. In 1985 he opened the Regional Chamber in Hoczwi, where he served as custodian, conservator and guide. He has exhibited his works in dozens of individual and group exhibitions at home and abroad.

Zdzislaw Pękalski presents figures of Christ, Mother of God, apostles, saints and angels in an original way. The sacred art of the Bieszczady artist clearly refers to and is inspired by Byzantine icons. Like the creators of icons, Pękalski paints on board. However, this material is very unusual. The material on which the “holy images” are created are old wooden troughs, kneading troughs, basins, granary doors with old fittings and locks, etc. These seemingly useless relics of the past have found a secondary purpose – they have served the artist as creative material.

The variety of wood textures shaped by nature, visible in the cross-sections of grain and fiber, discovered and highlighted by Zdzislaw Pękalski’s sacred paintings amazes with their beauty. It is from them that the artist conjures up unique, transcendent works.