Multi - Award Winning Laura I. Art Gallery is pleased to announce their seventh art exhibition of this year titled “Dreaming of Folk”, featuring the works of the emerging folk artist Nikolas Wereszczyński, set to open on the 31st of May through the leading art sales platform Artsy, and will be available for viewing until the 20th of the following month.

“Exploring Polish and LGBT Identity through Folk Art” is the launch event of the exhibition and it will be hosted online by the gallery on the 3rd of June on Zoom and will include a walkthrough of the individual pieces as well as an opportunity to meet the artist and engage in a discussion.

To celebrate LGBT Pride Month and raise awareness on the issues the LGBT community faces in his homeland, Wereszczyński will be joined at the private view by a special guest Dr. Łukasz Szulc – Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, and an author of “Transnational Homosexuals in Communist Poland” as well as multiple scholarly articles tackling the subject of queer culture, digital media and migration. He will be using his expertise to share his thoughts and knowledge on the relationship between Polish and LGBT identities, as well as the importance and the challenges of revisiting their common histories

As an LGBT folklore artist, Wereszczyński has been increasingly fascinated by the question of where do non-heterosexual and transgender people fit in their societies, and where did they fit before the worldwide era of their genocide and criminalisation. He alludes to and includes LGBT themes in select works as a pushback against the current hostile climate in Poland, as well as to reflect the important role that LGBT persons have played in numerous ancient societies.

He has also contributed to projects such as the one-off Transcendent Transgressions publication, used to raise money for the Trans Lifeline in the United States, and has worked with the only LGBT magazine in Poland, Replika, on an illustration project.

Composed mostly of gouache paintings, the exhibition will include the entirety of the Polish Legends series - a series which started as a way to illustrate the nation's most treasured legends, along with some pieces simply based on common Slavic themes as a way to recreate the hidden, magical life of the Polish countryside, filled with dwarves, singing critters and mythological beasts.

The series will stand alongside rustic linocut prints and paintings that explore Wereszczyński's emotional landmarks represented by fantastical landscapes.

Born in 1996 in Warsaw, Poland, Nikolas Wereszczyński was made to emigrate to England at the age of 11. Although still based in London he continues to nurture the ties to his ancestry, following a resolution to a complicated and resentful relationship with contemporary social attitudes and political situation in Poland.

Dreaming of folk will be Wereszczyński's first solo exhibition, following involvement in various events including the University of East London annual art auction during years 2017-19, and a group exhibition at the Candid Arts Trust titled Autumn Salon at the end of last year.