Bio

Viktor Witkowski is a painter and filmmaker. He was born in Poland and grew up in Germany where he graduated from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig (HBK Braunschweig, Germany) with a combined master’s degree in Studio Art, Art History and Art Education in 2006. The same year, he immigrated to the US where he earned an MFA in Visual Arts from Rutgers University in 2010. He currently splits his time between Vermont (US) and Leipzig (DE). When he is not working on paintings and films, he teaches as lecturer in Dartmouth College’s Studio Art Department in New Hampshire.

Viktor Witkowski’s writing and criticism has been published on Hyperallergic, the Painters’ Table, in The Brooklyn Rail and the New Art Examiner. His films and videos have been screened at numerous festivals in the US and abroad including such venues as the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, the York Art Gallery in York (UK), the LA Underground Film Forum in Los Angeles, The Artists Forum Festival of the Moving Image in New York City, and the AVIFF Cannes Art Film Festival in Cannes (France). In addition, his paintings have been featured in solo and group shows across the US, as well as in France, Germany and Poland. 

Statement

My paintings and films address the representation of history, domestic as well as global conflicts and the impact these have on the individual. At the same time, I ask what the possibilities of painting and film are in the face of unsettling, yet socially relevant topics. Is there a space for poetics when dealing with the darker issues in life?

My work is driven by a deeply personal agenda: after martial law had been lifted in Poland in 1983, my parents decided to flee to what used to be West Germany in order to escape uncertainty and oppression. Ultimately, my work shows that politics and history are anything but theoretical constructs. On the contrary, these conditions affect people's minds, hearts and everyday lives.