Paweł Żak (b. 1965, Warsaw), From the series: "A Close Friend," 2002/2004

Biography
Photographer, full member of the Warsaw Chapter of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF). He is a graduate of the Faculty of Multimedia Communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań. Since 2011, he has been a lecturer in photography at the Faculty of Journalism at the University of Warsaw and at the ZPAF Higher School of Photography. Two main trends can be distinguished in his work: staged photography of a symbolic nature and compositionally minimalist photography consisting of studies of nature—most often plants, fruits, and sometimes landscapes. Many of the artist’s works are created using unconventional printing techniques, resulting in unique prints. In 1998, he won the Prix de la Lumière at the European Photography Contest in Vevey (Switzerland). His works are part of the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the National Museum and the Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, and the Museum of Art in Łódź. The artist’s photographs have been displayed at numerous exhibitions, including at the Anzerberger Gallery in Vienna and the WM Gallery in Amsterdam.