Artist
and Teacher

Andrzej Banachowicz, born in 1952, graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Poznań earning a diploma of higher education with distinction in Sculpture (Professor J. Berdyszak) and Exhibition Design (Professor W. Gyurkovich). He works in the field of original tapestry. His works are parts of national and foreign collections. Since 1992 he has worked in the School of Fine Arts in Poznań, in the Higher School of Applied Art in Poznań and in the University of Zielona Góra. In the years 1996-1999 and 1999-2002, he was the Vice-President (Artistic Research) of the School of Fine Arts in Poznań. From 1996 to 2002, he worked as an expert for the Council of Artistic Higher Education in the Ministry of Culture.

The artist’s brilliance, sensitivity, brightness, reliability and ability to work efficiently are aspects of his personality that become immediately noticed by his interlocutor. The conversation with him is a pleasure thanks not only to his friendly attitude, but also because he does not need long explanations. He grasps his interlocutors’ ideas in an instant, although it could take hours to elucidate them to others. I suppose that the people who contact him every day must communicate with him without the necessity of saying a word.
I am writing about the above-mentioned aspects of Professor Andrzej Banachowicz’s personality because they enable him to efficiently and successfully work both as an artist and a teacher, function at the ministerial level, and promote the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań.
In my opinion he puts into practice Herman Hesse’s idea from The Glass Bead Game: “We should not flee from the vita activa to the vita contemplativa, nor vice versa, but be alternately on the move between the two, be at home with both, and participate in both."
What kind of artist is Professor Banachowicz? He is as brilliant an artist as he is a partner in conversation. In creating his tapestries, he instils them with multiple meanings and defies conventions. He feels equally comfortable in the art of classical wall tapestry, installations composed of different materials, and in the field experimental works. Creation and communication of feelings and emotions are crucial to him. The choice of material and technique follow.
His oeuvre includes architecture and sculpture, conceptual and classical tapestry works. Sometimes, as is visible in the case of the man-with-a-pillow series, certain themes repeat. The series in question is an excellent demonstration of the artist’s talent. It expresses his reflection on time that flows and makes everything emerge and come to an end, and on the artwork that artists leave to their ancestors (Non omnis moriar).
As Zbigniew Horbowy (who along with Wojciech Sadley made the most thorough interpretation of this art) has remarked, the works of Banachowicz are “unified by the epic element that is meant to communicate a certain truth about the artist himself and about human existence in general." They are beautiful and moving (Father’s Epitaph, Freedom Was Close). They most often result from the artist’s personal experiences and are effects of his contact with nature and his reflection on civilization.
Banachowicz’s art is astonishing and intriguing not only for Polish experts, but also for artists and teachers working in art schools abroad. The latter is proved by the writings of Professor Valerie Kirk from Australia and Professor Angie Wyman from Great Britain.

Andrzej Haegenbarth