Jacek Frąś

• born 1977
• born in Sieradz
• he lives and creates his works in Lublew Gdański
• he specializes in comics and illustrations

“I would like more people to recognize comics as a medium for a serious content”.

In 2002, he graduated from the Faculty of Graphic Arts and Painting of the Władysław Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, supervised by prof. Marian Kępiński and prof. Gabriel Kołat. He runs comics and art workshops in youth clubs, libraries, schools and community centres. He is a guest lecturer in the Study of Illustration, Comics and Pre Production of Games and Films of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. He has taken part in many individual and group comics exhibitions in Poland, including in Łódź, Gdańsk, Płock and Ostrów Wielkopolski, and abroad, including in Japan, Germany, Croatia or Italy.

The most important publications: “Glinno”, Kultura Gniewu, 2004; “Stan” – insert in “Przekrój” No. 49, published on 07.12.2006; “Tragedyja Płocka” (art), story by G. Janusz, Płocka Galeria Sztuki, 2009; “Totalnie nie nostalgia” (art), story by W. Hagedorn, Wydawnictwo Komiksowe/Kultura Gniewu, 2017; “Balbina i Bambak. Pralka w lesie”, Wydawnictwo Tadam, 2018; illustrations for “Jak wytresować Cthulhu” series by M. Jasiński, Wydawnictwo Tadam, 2017/2018.

The most important awards and distinctions: Alph-Art Award in the Young Talents category at the International Comics Festival in Angoulême, France, 2001; Grand Prix at the 20th Comics Festival (“Ostra Biel”, story by G. Janusz), 2009; the 1st place in the “Book of 2017” category (“Totalnie nie nostalgia”, story by W. Hagedorn) in the Poll of the Radio Community Centre of Programme 3 of the Polish Radio, 2017; Awards of the Polish Comics Association – the best Polish comics 2018 (“Totalnie nie nostalgia”, Warsaw, 2018); Award of the Polish Comics Association – the best artist, Warsaw 2018. Jacek Frąś combines realism with expressionist-surrealistic components. He is as expressive in colourful and disturbing panels full of plays with contours as in those with subdued shades, purified of unnecessary elements. The resignation of chiaroscuro and the perspective makes flat drawings using thin precise strokes as expressive as those with rougher strokes. He feels good both in the horror convention and stories about human relationships, dreamlike convention or biographies. What is characteristic of Frąś is oscillating in a single comic between various styles and changing the convention of drawing: going from light and symbolic strokes to detailed panels with the elaborately constructed background. At the same time, owing to an exceptional depiction of reality, his comics are dynamic and pictorial and his characters have vivid facial expression.
He experiments with page composition; readers may observe spaces with no panels, with characters put directly on a page or with text only. Sometimes, there are panels which are almost a mirror reflection of each other or a series of drawings presented from the same perspective but with different contents.
The artist frequently plays with the comics medium, i.e. onomatopoeias which, when read aloud, form a melody of a song from a TV series the comic refers to, or experiments with letter shapes, where a character, when reading a letter, has an assigned colour and shape of handwriting put in the balloons.

Jacek Frąś Gallery

More information about the artist: jacekfras.com