Sepe Paints “Petty People” in Poland (Warsaw)

As you make your resolutions for the new year, you may find yourself trimming the bushes of your life, pruning away the unproductive branches, as it were. Polish poet Tadeausz Nowak (1930-1991) may have been thinking of clearing away the dead brush when he wrote about “ludzikowie” (petty people) in his “Frolic Psalm”.

SEPE. “Ludzikowie” (“Petty People”). After Tadeusz Nowak (1930 – 1991). Warsaw, Poland. (photo © SEPE)

Polish street artist Michał ‘Sepe’ Wręga was born in Warsaw and tells us about this new mural he painted in his hometown as a tribute to the poet. Always in touch with his graffiti roots, Sepe now plays with a sophisticated palette like an illustrator and painter, giving these figures a maudlin cheer, mired as they are in trifling fixations.

SEPE. “Ludzikowie” (“Petty People”). After Tadeusz Nowak (1930 – 1991). Warsaw, Poland. (photo © SEPE)

To better describe his intentions with these pink and blue painterly depictions, Sepe quotes Nowak for us: “Heaven, oh heaven, pricked with spears, pierced through with a cow’s horn, poor petty people standing beneath with their God swamped in plaster”.

SEPE. “Ludzikowie” (“Petty People”). After Tadeusz Nowak (1930 – 1991). Warsaw, Poland. (photo © SEPE)
SEPE. “Ludzikowie” (“Petty People”). After Tadeusz Nowak (1930 – 1991). Warsaw, Poland. (photo © SEPE)
SEPE. “Ludzikowie” (“Petty People”). After Tadeusz Nowak (1930 – 1991). Warsaw, Poland. (photo © SEPE)
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