Mateusz Piestrak was born in 1991 in Poland. In 2016 he graduated from the Faculty of Painting at the University of the Arts in Poznań and received MA degree at the studio of Prof. Włodzimierz Dudkowiak. In 2016 he received the Grand Prix at the Maria Dokowicz Competition for The Best Diplomas in Art (Poznań, Poland). In 2019 he was nominated for the 13th Geppert Competition which is a prestigious competition for young painters organized every three years in Wrocław, Poland. He took part in many group exhibitions and had several individual shows in Poland, Germany and the USA. In his practice he focuses on assembling collage-like compositions of various visual materials, combining abstract structures of painterly gestures with elements of the digital environment or archival photographs. His paintings are often designed as multi-layered, ambiguous puzzles that play with viewer’s perception and imagination. He lives and works in Poznań, where he continues his PhD studies in painting.