Buffalo Society of Artists: Paul Klonowski

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Over the holidays we will be highlighting a number of members of Buffalo Society of Artists (BSA), so that you might support them by purchasing original works of art. Thanks to Paul Rybarczyk at BSA for helping me put these together. Visit the BSA website to learn more about the institution - one of the oldest continually operating arts organizations in the country. Next up on our list is artist Paul Klonowski:

Paul Klonowski is a new BSA member. He was born in Buffalo and has lived and worked in Western New York throughout his life. His contemporary figurative drawings combine traditional media: blending charcoal, pastel and gouache with instinct and spontaneity. "Charcoal remains to be the media in which I think best. The earthy nature of it appeals to me. Pastel and gauche enable me to add color and gesture to my work," Klonowski said. He also scores the drawing surface with sandpaper and knives to add texture.

His contemporary figurative drawings study societal interrelations - past, present, and imagined - that shape our world. While most of his drawings are of people, they are not portraits in the traditional sense. "I feel my work is most successful when a figure's humanity is revealed. That is the moment a viewer can begin to engage with the work, and ultimately, be left with something that's lasting," said Klonowski. His most recent series of work, Natural Language, blends visual stories with relational words. The series explores the tendency to distill experiences into small digestible phrasing -- building simple stories for complex situations.