Hopi Flower Series

Slowinski currently serves as professor of painting at the Kansas City Art Institute. He received a Certificate of Art in painting from the School of Art Institute of Chicago in 1954. Thirty years later he had a twenty-five year retrospective at the Sheldon Memorial Gallery of Art at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. His works are a part of major museum collections such as the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, New York, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and Japan. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Advanced Grant to Japan and taught at Indiana University before coming to Kansas City. Inspired by a mere piece of pottery from First Mesa in Arizona from where all Hopi pottery comes, Slowinski created this entire series of paintings. In addition to the Hopi Flower Series, Slowinski completed two other series of paintings from his travels in Wyoming and Mexico. The subtle pinks and oranges in this painting are derived from the firing process used to make the pottery. The expressive spiral floating on the surface of the painting relates directly to the drawings the Hopi artist made on the surface of his jar. Slowinski liked using watercolors for this series since it allowed him the luminous characteristics of his visual experiences in the desert of Arizona.