Wlodzimierz Ksiazek was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1951. He emigrated to the United States in the early 1980s, and became part of a community of gifted visual artists, poets, and writers working on the Eastern seaboard.

The imprint of architecture in thick paint contains a symbolic element: Ksiazek is an exile; he left Poland as an adult, fully aware of his decision to depart. He decided not to become a citizen but a permanent U.S. resident and has chosen to build a place to live in his medium, oil paint. He lives on through the sustenance of this practice; of knowing this place, this homeland.

The commanding presence of Ksiazek's work, created by the unexpected “collision” of the immediacy and raw physicality of the works and the air of subtle melancholy which hang over these laboriously worked canvases, is striking. He is recognized for mastering a genre of abstract painting that is heavily invested in encrypting personal and social references. His work expresses both violation and freedom which gives it extraordinary power. The interplay of gestures and marks -- achieved by the scraping, dragging, and piling of paint -- underscores a sense of perpetual banishment and alienation, carving out a territory that is both symbolic and real.