The Afternoon a Faun

ARTUR GRUCELA (b. 1987, Poland)

Artur Grucela is a painter based in Piwniczna-Zdrój whose work places solitary figures within vast, often hostile landscapes. Working in oil on canvas, he creates scenes that feel suspended between reality and myth.

His paintings frequently depict anonymous bodies moving through barren forests, scorched terrain, or strange natural settings that evoke both post apocalyptic imagery and older religious or literary worlds. Nature in his work is never decorative or comforting. Instead, it appears indifferent, overpowering, and at times almost infernal, reducing the figure to a fragile presence within the landscape.

Drawing from Symbolism, Romanticism, and artists such as Gustave Doré and William Blake, Grucela builds compositions that feel cinematic, melancholic, and slightly unsettling. Despite their darkness, the paintings remain quiet and restrained, relying more on atmosphere than narrative.