About Mateo Zareba

Mateo Zaręba (b. 1977) — a self-taught artist from Cracow. He quit his job to spend a year and a half travelling with his wife and two-year-old daughter across different corners of the world, painting along the way. The fruit of this journey is a series of paintings inspired by, among others, Andalusia, Argentina, Chile and Indonesia.

He paints mainly in oil on canvas, in formats ranging from small 20 × 20 cm pieces to large 120 × 90 cm canvases. His paintings were made in Cracow, in Bali, in Seville, in San Martín in Argentina, on Tenerife and in Lisbon — and the earliest of them go back to the mid-1990s.

Cracow remains his point of reference: this is where he lives, works and exhibits. In 2009 he showed "Tsunami on Kazimierz" at Eszeweria in Cracow, presenting animations on multimedia frames alongside his oil paintings. More recently he showed his painting at the "re:naissance" opening at Cafe Szafe, and in July 2026 he painted at the plein-air of the "Sztuka w opłotkach" culture festival in Platerów.

Besides painting, he also works with photography, film and music; he sings and plays in the bands Dante & The Band and ZOOid.