HAMBURG.- 14a is presenting Borderland, Marcin Barański’s first solo exhibition in Hamburg, Germany.
Self-taught artist Marcin Barański’s visual vocabulary is rooted in his architectural background as well as in a wide array of inspirations and impressions. He considers urban design, landscape interiors, walkways, fences and decking structures to compromise an open-air space that we are located in, that we enter and leave but cannot escape. Within this space, applying his concept of symmetry, Barański builds up narratives by composing everyday objects, phenomena and cultural indicators. Fascinated by contemporaneity, he connects and at the same time juxtaposes the local with the global, as well as the simple with the refined to manifest his very own interpretation of the world. A world in which the borders between reality and fantasia coalesce. Moving ‘in-between’ two worlds is a feeling that Barański can relate to when reflecting on his life in Poland. A country that is often considered to be the bridge between Eastern and Western Europe. Having spent his entire life in Poland, Barański has always felt to be located in a place that is neither entirely West nor East when examining the country's historical, political and cultural distinctions. Rather than redrawing boundaries, Barański depicts his very own cosmos where boundaries meet and merge. His bold and vivid colour palette is very much influenced by his time spent in Italy. Azure skies, soft brown and yellow hills, red earth tones of ploughed soil, bright and saturated reds, greens and oranges that reference the iconic Piaggio scooters, pale pinks and greens that remind him of fig and pistachio ice cream and shades of gold inspired by the Byzantine mosaics. His use of color and contrasting geometry make his objects and figures seem out of this world. Seemingly surreal, yet with a strong reference to everyday life.
Marcin Barański (b.1970, Myślenice, Poland; lives and works in Kraków) received an MA from Cracow University of Technology at the Faculty of Architecture in 1994 and a Ph.D, from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice in 2002. He currently teaches drawing and painting at the Cracow University of Technology. Recent projects and exhibitions include Reasonable and independent (illustrations), at Il Multiverso, Castagneto Carducci, Italy Abandoned house and land, at the Centro Polifonzionale, Canneto, Italy The Straw and The Ring at Gallery Mikołajska in Kraków, Poland, among others.
