Andrzej Folfas was born on 6th January 1948 in Witów, in the Wester part of the Tatra Mountains in Poland. He attended Kenar's Zakopane Art Collage where he studied under tuition of Professors: W. Hasior, T. Brzozowski and A. Rząsa. In 1973 he graduated from Cracow Academy of Fine Arts at the Faculty of Interior Design. He studied under tuition of Professors: J. Ząbkowski, T. Kutermak, B. Braun and A. Sigmund. At present he lives and works in Cracow.
Prof Włodzimierz Hodys, Academy of Fine Arts, Cracow:
"What seems to be a difficult and incomprehensible form in art galleries and at exhibitions, is starting to reach us by means of a language that is not only suggestive and convincing, but also self-evident. Such a statement seems to be a paradox! However, when we look at Andrzej Folfas' pictures and when we analyse his exuberant, but disciplined temperament, we become aware that he knows how to organize emotions and how to demonstrate the whole process of creation. At the same time, we discover an almost aggressive and avid adoration of life and a delight the artist takes in his technical ability to depict notional abbreviations. In his painting he discloses not only every form, but also tries to visualise the properties of material and to emphasis the concrete nature of colours' intense formal range. All this introduces an atmosphere of austerity. And though Andrzej Folfas is a genuine highlander from Witów in the Polish Tatras, who grew up with austerity, not in the artistic sense of l'Art Brut, but the austerity arising from nature itself. This natural austerity shaped his personality: he is very direct and sincere, which is typical of highlanders. When we look at his vivacity and frankness resulting , certainly, from his continuous contact with the grandeur of the mountains, we are tempted to quote Jacques Maritain and to compare Andrzej Folfas to a modern Job thrown onto the scrap-heap of civilisation. His art has been undoubtedly influenced by the folklore of the Polish Tatras, it is full of simplified forms and rough metaphors, since all nuances and semi-tones are an expression of decadence and surfeit. Simple and authentic art has to be given expression by means of metaphors to denounce its annoyance with all signs of idleness. His pictures have a poetic structure. The artist uses metaphor, metonymy and anastrophe to express as much information about the emotions and pulsations of his soul as possible in his, to a certain degree experimental paintings. If we want to better understand the origin of Andrzej Folfas' painting, it is necessary to mention the atmosphere of the Polish Tatras and Kenar's Zakopane Art College where he studied under the direction of such eminent vanguard artists like Hasior or Brzozowski. His study at the Cracow Academy of Fine Art in Cracow as well as his activity of several years as a jewellery designer for the Imago-Artis exerted, naturally, a great influence on his art. In the times of the twilight of the painting his artistic expression appears as a very authentic one, if not in terms of the Avant-Garde (which is a continuous revision of artistic ideas), then in terms of historical innovation."
