Opening Hours
Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm
Gallery
Art Agenda Nova
Batorego 2, Krakow
Artist
Piotr Szwabe
ABOUT EXHIBITION
The artist from Gdańsk, Piotr Szwabe, shows scenes from everyday life, private life, and intensely observes the closest surroundings. He is intrigued by the mental, petty-bourgeois trash. He tries to describe what surrounds him, and it is usually a banal reality, and at the same time very inspiring. Topics that touch this are: love, sex, faith, religion and tolerance. But also pop culture, and now politics is the motive of his paintings. It is slightly cynical, ironic and caricatural in its action. It can be naive, which serves the most objective way of presenting the problem. It is said that his works are often sad, sometimes cruel, „punk” in his pedigree. It refers to the aesthetics of children’s drawings, hence the effect of a kind of carelessness or even ugliness. He uses different ways of creating images than artists of his generation, which makes them seem harsh, simple and even primitive. He uses the sociological commentary contained in the images, so the message is clear and readable. Piotr Szwabe based in his work on „zgrzycie” – both in the formal layer – bright colors, consciously unfinished, „unpainted” parts of images, but also in the content layer – where the idyllic in the scene the scene is disturbing the climate of anxiety. The artist uses simple and legible symbols taken from mass culture, uses images of politicians, but also children’s idols like Barbi and Ken, he ponders the „macdonaldisation” of life and the constant need to play war. Using the slogan, simplification, links to specific events, Szwabe shortens the distance between the viewer and the image to a minimum.
(artist) FEW ABOUT IMAGES:
„I do not paint fashionable, promoted, almost perfected photographic realism. I try to show the child’s world, appearing as carefree, spontaneous, colorful, „heavily painted” with characteristic elements that are inseparable from childhood, such as football, kites, ice-cream, gifts – in the context of war, political, social and geographical threats.
In the center of the latest cycle, I put children who show smiling, in constant motion, dressed in colorful costumes symbolizing joy and lack of any consequences from the outside. It also shows children thoughtfully. In my latest work, I try to give people a message about the dangers of the present, especially the dangers affecting the youngest people-children. Paintings show the beauty of childhood combined, however, inevitably with passing away. ”
Magda Bielesz and M.M. Gołębiewscy
www.webesteem.pl
Love, Sex, Faith, Religion and Tolerance
Piotr Szwabe vel Pisz
It’s hard for me to write about any other artist than about myself (because, as they say in the 3rd city, it’s not like lans), but I decided to write about people I met and whose work and attitude mean something to me. Piotr is the first person outside the Warsaw artistic milieu that I met.
He is an interesting personality and that’s why I decided to tell him about it.
He is an intriguing man, rather taciturn, so he is my opposite. In the formal issue, sometimes we differ to the pain. But he generally knows what I mean and it seems to me that by following his work I know what he is talking about and that is important.
It is able to advise help and comfort when necessary – I think good character traits, I will not mention evil for what for.
At the beginning it will be so generally.
Piotr Szwabe – born in 1975 – a wall painter and easel, poet.
Since 2001, he is the happy father of Ita.
Since 2000 he has been curator of the Wall Painting Festival, Clinical Node in Gdańsk.
Together with Tomasz Bielak and Tomasz Zabrocki, they form the painter group SAM them. Vincent Van Gogh.
He lives and works in Gdansk.
We met when he came to Warsaw together with Małgosia Zwolicka (they prepared some exhibition at the Łaźnia Center for Contemporary Art, young painting, but it did not come to fruition).
Piotrek is one of those people who, apart from the fact that they create themselves, still have time to organize festivals and exhibitions, inviting other artists to them, and at the same time having a great time and it’s probably the most important thing to have fun!
In his works, it can be seen that there is no extortion or imposition in them. They often seem unfinished, even ill-painted (as if he waved a brush and went), but not the visual effect is the most important here. Sometimes the timid title of the work suggests an interpretation.
Do I write intelligibly?
Maybe I’ll finish this interpretation – I’m not a critic of art or I do not want to play with it – I think it should be a critic of art – in any case, I was quietly saying so I will quote here a press release for the exhibition at Nova Gallery, which explains everything:
In his works, Piotr Szwabe „shows scenes from everyday life, private life, and intensely observes the closest surroundings. He is intrigued by the mental, petty-bourgeois trash. He tries to describe what surrounds him, and it is usually a banal reality, and at the same time very inspiring. Topics that touch this are: love, sex, faith, religion and tolerance. But also pop culture, and now politics is the motive of his paintings. It is slightly cynical, ironic and caricatural in its action. It can be naive, which serves the most objective way of presenting the problem. It is said that his works are often sad, sometimes cruel, „punk” in his pedigree. It refers to the aesthetics of children’s drawings, hence the effect of a kind of carelessness or even ugliness. He uses different ways of creating images than artists of his generation, which makes them seem harsh, simple and even primitive. He uses the sociological commentary contained in the images, so the message is clear and readable. Piotr Szwabe based in his work on „zgrzycie” – both in the formal layer – bright colors, consciously unfinished, „unpainted” parts of images, but also in the content layer – where the idyllic in the scene the scene is disturbing the climate of anxiety. The artist uses simple and readable symbols drawn from mass culture, uses images of politicians, but also children’s idols like Barbie and Ken, he ponders the macdonaldization of life and the constant need to play war. Using slogan, simplification, and links to specific events, Szwabe shortens the distance between the viewer and the image to a minimum. ”
Piotr Szwabe says about his works: „I do not paint fashionable, promoted, almost perfected photographic realism. I try to show the child’s world, appearing as carefree, spontaneous, colorful, „heavily painted” with characteristic elements that are inseparable from childhood like football, kites, ice-cream, gifts – in the context of war, political, social and geographical threats.
In the center of the latest cycle, I put children who show smiling, in constant motion, dressed in colorful costumes symbolizing joy and lack of any consequences from the outside. It also shows children thoughtfully. In my latest work, I try to give people a message about the dangers of the present, especially the dangers affecting the youngest people-children. Paintings show the beauty of childhood combined, however, inevitably with passing away. ”
ab
www.gazeta.pl
New Pisz. Exhibition of paintings by Piotr Szwabe – Galeria Nova
Paintings like children’s drawings hung on the walls of Galeria Nova. However, one would be wrong if he would assign childlike carefree to these fairy-tale colored canvases. This is a viciously ironic, sometimes cruel and brutal look at the world of Piotr Szwabe – a painter, poet and culture animator from the Gdańsk club.