Wilhem Sasnal is a Polish artist, whose work echoes that of Gerhard Richter. I recently went to his show at The Whitechapel and was very impressed.
Born in 1972, Sasnal helped form a Krakow-based artist collective known as the Ladnie ("pretty") group. They reacted to the classic and conservative techniques of their instructors at art school, choosing to focus on everyday scenes and images from pop culture.
He draws no limits as to what he paints - everyday objects, portraits of historical figures, views of his home town Cracow, photos of friends and family and sometimes just images from the internet that inspire him.
His paintings are bold and graphic in style – using a lot of neutral grey tones, mixed with one or two colours. What I like most about his work is the texture of the paint and his many different ways of applying it, his use of light and the fact that his paintings look so simple, though they are not at all.
Here’s some of my favourite pieces from the exhibition;
