Art for Change Prize: Meet the Winner for Europe

Global creative solutions company M&C Saatchi Group and London’s iconic Saatchi Gallery launched a new annual international art initiative – the Art for Change Prize.  

As part of a shared mission in making art, culture, and creativity accessible to everyone, this prize will stimulate dialogue around visual arts as a medium for positive global and social change and give exposure to emerging artists worldwide. 

Our six winners from around the world were decided by some of the best business and creative minds from the M&C Saatchi Group globally and eminent guest judges. In this Art for Change series, we hear from our winners for 2022. Find out what inspires them artistically, what equality means to them, and what’s coming up next. 

The Art for Change Prize will return in Spring 2023.

Introducing Jaroslaw Lisicki from Poland. Learn more about Jaroslaw’s work here.

Artist Jaroslaw Lisicki with his winning entry, ‘We’, at London’s Saatchi Gallery. Image credit: Tom Shaw

1. Describe your artistic practice in 3 words. 

Jaroslaw> Life (as) constant movement. 

2. What excites you most about the Art for Change Prize? 

Jaroslaw> The opportunity to exhibit and meet interesting people.

3. You have been selected as the winner for Europe. Tell us about your winning artworks and the relationship to this year’s theme ‘Equality’. 

Jaroslaw> In my works I try to represent the disintegration of man, capture the movement, both external and internal. I try to represent a person impersonally, because we are all human beings and despite our differences, we are all equal in relation to time. 

4. Can you tell us more about where you are from and how this affects your work? 

Jaroslaw> I come from Poland, and this influences my artistic work a lot. Poland is invariably ruled by the cult of Romanticism and sometimes I have the impression that this Romanticism has been dragging us behind since the 19th century. Perhaps that's why my paintings are so dramatic and standing in opposition to the Romantic-nationalist trend. But this is too complex a problem to explain in a few sentences. 

5. Where do you find your inspiration? 

Jaroslaw> In everything around me, but mostly people. You could say that human relationships are my biggest inspiration. 

6. Do you believe art has the power to change the world? 

Jaroslaw> Of course, art can educate and sensitise people. In my opinion, education and empathy are the most important pillars for development and change in society. 

7. If you could be compared to one artist from art history, who would it be? 

Jaroslaw> Francisco Goya. 

8. What’s next? 

Jaroslaw> Lately I've been interested in the subject of the 'Cult of the Individual', so that's probably what my next painting will be about.