Work and Play

Wrocław, Poland–based artist Otecki (Wojciech Kołacz) has created an installation, Work and Play, that significantly adds to the cultural landscape of the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood, historically settled and established by many Polish families; today, Buffalo is home to the second largest Polish population in the United States. The location is directly across the street from Torn Space Theater, which is housed in the Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle.

Wojciech Kołacz, a.k.a. Otecki (Polish, born 1984), is an illustrator, printmaker, painter, and mural artist working in Wrocław, Poland. Otecki finds influence in Cubism, non-Western art, and Slavonic folklore. He is fond of presenting dualistic worlds and characters; especially human-animal combinations that are “part majesty and part mystery,” as the artist puts it.

This project is supported in part by Broadway-Fillmore Neighborhood Housing Services, which partnered with the AK Public Art Initiative in 2017 to produce Keir Johnston and Ernel Martinez’s Welcome Wall mural.