Stanislav Krawczyk: Sketches of Pain [Hardcover]

Foreword
by Chet Zar

Artist biography

Stanislav Krawczyk was born in 1984, in the city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine. Living with cerebral palsy in a country hobbled by conflict, most of his youth was spent in hospitals that he describes as the worst kind of terrifying, "like an LSD trip, a horrible, horrible dream... like something you would see in a horror movie."

It was in one of these hospitals, during a series of corrective surgeries, that Stan finished his art schooling. Channeling his pain and suffering onto paper became an outlet for both the agony of cerebral palsy and the agony of isolation from the society that oppressed him.

"Society didn't recognize me as a normal person," Stan shares, divulging that at the height of his persecution he was investigated by government agents over concerns that the dark, unsettling tones of his artwork meant that he was crazy or dangerous.

Stan's deeply unique art is a series of frenzied, haunting forms, each one born from a need to exorcise the demons that haunt him. This book collects over 60 of his most powerful drawings into a deluxe, limited edition hardcover, honoring his journey as both an artist and a human being.