Landscape artist Waj makes welcome return with first show after stroke

We’re sitting amongst his beautiful watercolour landscapes which forms his most recent exhibition at his spiritual and literal home, Chappel Galleries, but it all could have been so much different.

That’s because back in 2015, Wladyslaw suffered a stroke, which threatened to end his artistic career all together.

But now, after what he calls bouts of ‘extreme gardening’ and gently easing himself back in to his work, Waj, as he’s affectionately known to friends and family, is doing what he does best, exhibiting his beautiful depictions of rural landscapes.

“I must admit,” he says, “I did feel a sense of achievement when we opened and was very pleased we got it all together. I know I’m a very lucky person because it could have been so much worse.

“It happened just before an exhibition I was having in London, the only time I haven’t attended a private view, and just after I won the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, so I experienced the highs of my work, and lows, all within a matter of weeks.”

Taking stock of what had happened, Waj slowly got himself better.

“My last show at Chappel was in 2014,” he continues, “and with preparing for that and the one in London I think it was fair to say I needed a break. It’s not quite the break I was hoping for though.

“After the stroke I just took stock of my life. I was a little overweight and I was drinking a little too much but not that badly but I knew I had to get fitter and better.”

At first he began working on his garden but soon his need to put brush back on to canvas took hold.

“We’d always wanted to do something with the garden,” he tells me. “It goes right down to the river and at the end there was a big drop so the idea was to fill that in so it dropped gently to the banks.

“In the end it was pretty good work for me wheeling down barrows of earth. I must have shifted a tonne of the stuff but it really helped me out.

“As with the painting,” he continues, “well I started with some small pieces firs. Carrying on a series of paintings of a barn locally here to Chappel, which are all included in the exhibition, but I’m someone who does large works. It’s what I do and so it wasn’t long before I started on one.”

And what a picture it is, a glorious painting of a single oak tree on the road from Walberswick to Dunwich, which is so detailed and atmospheric it’s almost as though the tree is gently swaying right before your eyes.

“That kind of painting would normally take me six weeks,” he reveals, “but after the stroke it took me six months in all to do. At first it was frustrating but after a while I just knew it was going to take a bit of time.”

As well as the paintings of his immediate locale, the fields, woods and iconic viaduct in and around Chappel, this exhibition has work from the Essex and Suffolk coast and further afield with a stunning painting of Salisbury Cathedral and studies of places in France and Egypt.

“It’s better to paint what you know,” he says, “and for me, I really have to be in the place to paint. That’s why a lot of my work is of the surrounding area. I didn’t set about capturing this, it’s just the way I work.

“I do think that experience of being in the same place has served me quite well, the familiarity of seeing a landscape over a long period of time, living alongside it, I suppose those images seep in to the subconsciousness.”

Born and brought up in Chelmsford, to Polish parents, Waj didn’t want to follow his artistic drive at first, preferring to be ‘sensible’ and concentrate on taking a degree in science.

After several years living and working in London, he moved back to Essex and eventually found himself working as a labourer and living in a railway carriage at the East Anglian Railway Museum, a stone’s throw to where he lives now in Chappel.

Edna, who was later to become his wife, had set up her own business, Chappel Galleries and soon Waj found himself as one of her lodgers and helping her out putting on the exhibitions.

“Basically I got rid of all of the other lodgers until it was just me,” he smiles. “After a while helping others put on shows, I started thinking I would quite like to put on my own.”

For Waj the real turning point was an exhibition he had in China in 1999.

“It wasn’t the China it is now,” he adds. “No Shanghai millionaires and trying to sell my work was very hard but when I came back I found a new impetus to start getting my work out there to lots of different galleries.”

Since then he exhibited all over the country and has picked up a number of awards including the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize and coming second and third in the Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition.

“I think I’m done with the competitions now,” he says. “I’m probably not going to do any better than I have already and although we’ve got this new show up and running, I’m still technically recovering. I still sometimes feel like I’ve got a dead leg and the painting takes its time but I’m delighted I’m back and doing what I love.

“We worked hard to get the show together and while there’s some old paintings being exhibited, it’s mostly work that I’ve made since the stroke.”

Which considering the amount, and the quality, of the paintings on show is testament to the power of Waj to get himself back to the easel .

Wladyslaw Mirecki: Watercolours runs at the Chappel Galleries until April 1, open Wednesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm.

For more information go to chappelgalleries.co.uk