Download volume 2: Kalinski Fab Art
The first volume of a specially curated selection of original artwork from the brushes and pens of the celebrated Kent Artist Jan Kalinski who tragically died on Remembrance Day 2022. Based down the meandering leafy lanes of Kent Jan had suffered from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) since 1992 but never let that stop him from clutching on to a paint brush even though his fingers became numb. This collection of art, much of which has never been published before shares an insight into his complex and labyrinthine soul - the images brought together for this special edition are striking, tangental and mixing the traditional and contemporary with originality born out of his own cosmic universe.
Excerpt:
Jan produced hundreds of oil and acrylic paintings and illustrations which globally reside in galleries, private collections and occasionally find their way back into the public domain through art auctions. In fact he was generous to many by giving away lots of his paintings and featured in this collection are works published for the first time and many that have never been seen before.
I had known Jan for four decades stretching back into the early 1980s and he was a very talented artist who had an intense bond with his easel and brushes but he had a very complex relationship with those closest to him and was searching for something inner that had been lost. When his mother died in Canada and he went to sort out her affairs he was devastated to find she had burnt and destroyed all the family photographs leaving him with no personal visual memories, a lost childhood. When he talked of Canada it was more of what he was missing in England and Canada was literally a wildness to him in his teenage years. And in his last year his unfulfilled longing was to return “home” to Rugby and his early childhood surrounded by things and the places he remembered.
I cannot deny that many of his paintings had a simmering, tormented and in truth a degree of despair as subject matter which was also born out of his fascination with the mystical and cosmic universe.Towards the end of his life Jan had started to paint a series of bright Canadian - Alberta abstract empty landscapes in different seasons …. another nod to something lost or someone searching for a meaning perhaps in life …. they are strikingly good paintings and hopefully they can be reproduced in a possible future second volume of his contemporary work. It was always amazing that painting with MS did not deter him or in any way seem to hold him back and the attention to detail was in many ways outstanding and yes sometimes tangental.
Jan was always at his happiest painting and when he ran out of creative ideas he would delve into my poetry and books and interpret an image of that particular poem or title and we had so many collaborative projects and ideas whirling around, some started but unfinished and he left me many new pieces of finished artwork and designs for future book covers.