ANDRZEJ URBANSKI

(b. 1983 Poznan, Poland)

 Andrzej Urbanski is an established Cape Town-based artist prized for his immaculate hard-edged abstract art. The clean, precise forms defining it belie its relationship to memory, sensory and spatial encounters, emotions and psychic states, which are channelled most often into overlapping colourful geometric shapes, implying resolution. The bold shards of colour characterising his art may recall objects, places, experiences from his youth, the colour of a building or a room, or encompass the state of mind he is in as he steps into his Woodstock studio. As such his painted art is described as ‘high’ or ‘low frequency’, referring to either a complex matrix of influences shaping intricate compositions, or in the latter instance, quieter, ‘less busy’ forms often united by a subdued colour palette.

His art appears to be the result of an automated process – the precision of its execution engenders this notion that it is generated by a detached, robotic or digital tool. His interest in generating this illusion is rooted in his fascination with digitally produced art, the digital tools he uses in plotting his intricate compositions, the relationship between lived experience and virtual reality and the valorisation of handmade products in the post-industrial era. It is also informed by his appreciation for the minimalist movement, though he is inspired by a range of high modernists from Rothko to Piet Mondrian.

He employs the unconventional spray paint medium in his abstract painting as it produces flat colour and removes any trace of the ‘artist’s hand’. This conforms not only to the minimalist ethos but his desire to replicate imagery that appears to be digitally generated.

He is a prolific painter and sculptor who has participated in countless group exhibitions around the world since graduating with a Masters in Fine Art from the ECAL University of Art and Design in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2012. He was born in Poznan, Poland, in 1983 and settled in Berlin, Germany, with his parents in 1989. Growing up in Berlin’s ‘grey zone’ after the fall of the wall in the late eighties when barriers between east and west were eroded activated his participation in street culture. He first experimented with spray-paint as a graffiti artist before applying this medium in a fine art context. After exhibiting in shows in his then hometown of Berlin, Georgia USA, Canada and Switzerland, a Cape Town residency brought him to South African shores in 2012. He relocated to this country and enjoyed his first South African solo exhibition, Mindgame, in 2015 at Salon 91 in Cape Town.

It was a sell-out show and he has gone from strength to strength as an artist, producing larger more ambitious works and compositions. He is currently represented by Everard Read and to date has had solo exhibitions in their Johannesburg, Cape Town and London spaces. 

“Urbanski is a rare breed of artist – one who authentically manages to playfully negotiate perfect applications and concrete designs with a focused ability that denotes fresh and pertinent abstract experimentation,” says Emma Vandermerwe, Head Curator at Everard Read in Cape Town.

“Urbanski has settled on a vocabulary and aesthetic that chimes with these times though its lines extend back in time,” wrote art commentator Mary Corrigall in the Cape Times (August 23, 2017).

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2022    

Hedron, solo, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa 

Spring, group show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2021

Irregular, solo, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa 

Fragmented, solo, Macadam gallery, Brussels, Belgium

Masterpiece, London Art Fair with Everard Read London

Investec Cape Town Art Fair (Online), with Everard Read / CIRCA Cape Town, South Africa

2020

Digital Frequencies, solo, Everard Read, London, UK

STILL, group exhibition, Everard Read, UK & South Africa

A04 3684/618/20, solo exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Winter, group show, Macadam Gallery, Brussels, Belgium

2019    

Summer, group show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

CONTEXT Art Miami, with Everard Read, Miami, USA

Southern Aspect, group show, Everard Read, London, UK

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Afrca

2018    

A03 2034/538/18, solo, CIRCA, Johannesburg, South Africa

AB02 833/837/18, solo, Everard Read, London, UK

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read / CIRCA Cape Town, South Africa

Summer, Everard Read / CIRCA Cape Town, South Africa

2017     

AB01 1703/62017, solo, CIRCA Cape Town, South Africa.                                      

FNB Joburg Art Fair, Everard Read CIRCA, Johannesburg, South Africa

Summer Exhibition II, Everard Read London, United Kingdom

HARDLINE, CIRCA Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

Southern Abstraction, Everard Read London, United Kingdom

Winter Collection, CIRCA Cape Town, South Africa

Spectrum, CIRCA Johannesburg, South Africa

2016

HARDLINE, CIRCA Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

FNB Joburg Art Fair solo booth with Salon91. Selected Projects & Exhibitions. Johannesburg. South Africa.

AKKA Art Fair, Everard Read/ CIRCA Booth, Paris, France.

Paths, two-man exhibition with Tahiti Pehrson at Salon91, Cape Town, South Africa.

2015

Bronze, Steal and Stone Everard Read, Johannesburg. South Africa.

Turbine Art Fair with Salon91, Cape Town, South Africa.

MINDGAME, a solo exhibition at Salon91, Cape Town, South Africa.

2014

Turbine Art Fair with Salon91, Johannesburg. South Africa.

2013

Cape Town Art Fair with Salon91, Cape Town, South Africa.

A Vacant Passage, Works by Paul Senyol & Andrzej Urbanski ,Salon91

2012

Chance Visitor, Solo exhibition /A Word of Art, Cape Town. South Africa, Cape Town. South Africa

Neo-Maso, Geneva, Switzerland

Art Base, Art Festival, Berlin, Germany.

Living Walls, The City Speaks, Atlanta, Gerogia, USA

The Swarm exhibition, Vancouver, Canada

2011

Process No. 14, Sabine Grizmek, Andrzej Urbanski and Carina Jo Sivager, Prozessgallerie, Berlin, Germany