“Ode To The Big Sea” is one of Pener’s notable artworks, first on canvas and now on the wall. The Polish street artist, also known by his family as Bartek Swiatecki, evokes the reflective qualities of natural light awash in color here in Olsztyn. His unique blend of abstract and geometric forms invites you to jump in and be carried by waves.
A teacher and a student Swiatecki has developed an innovative use of space, often transforming a dull tableau into an unexpected visual experience.”Ode To The Big Sea” reflects his dual fascination with urban environments and the natural elements, merging them into complex visual narratives. In Moby Dick, the sea is vast and indifferent. Hemingway succeeded in capturing the deep, almost spiritual connection one may have with it. Rachel Carson highlighted both its grandeur and its fragility. In Pener’s latest, the rhythmic reflections of light and color make it precious, a jewel to revel in and behold.
The nature’s gentle harmony is, probably, the best remedy for the speeding time of today. It stabilizes the ground beneath our martyred feet.
~ Mateusz Świątecki
Bartek Świątecki, aka Penner, has a style that is a confidently defined blend of bold colors, geometric shapes, and abstract forms harmoniously intertwined. It’s a graphical minimalism that speaks volumes, with straight lines and pure colors forming complex, geometrical clusters. This unique visual language demonstrates his mastery of blending traditional graffiti with modern abstraction and reflects a deep engagement with high art and youth culture. His murals and canvas works, often large-scale, are known for their dynamic and vibrant nature, inviting viewers into a world where street art and fine art converge.
Usually, you don’t see his canvasses in a field of cows.
This new book of photos documenting his newest painting project outside the country features Stare Kowkowo, a village in the administrative district of Gmina Jonkowo in northern Poland—23 kilometers northwest of the regional capital, Olsztyn. Stare Kawkowo is part of a region known for its picturesque landscapes and historical significance. In the graffiti and street art world since the mid-1990s, Świątecki has etched a significant voice on contemporary art, so why not bring contemporary art into the heart of his natural homeland?
Looking through the text-free pages of the artist in the wooded areas and rolling pastures, you understand that his painting is not just an expression but a dialogue between himself and the world. Perhaps it is an effort to transcend conventional boundaries and labels, offering a unique perspective on his artistic journey, a testament to the evolving relationship between different art forms and cultural expressions.
Like the anonymous work we find on the streets, he’s not offering interpretation.
The painters’ brother Mateusz Świątecki, in the foreword of the book, eloquently adds, “Bartek’s paintings keep vibrating, as the light vibrates under our eyelids, in their unbridled dance of endless creation: as a spasm of condensed matter just before being jetted into the oceans of entropy in the Big Bang.”
He further reflects, “Bartek never explains what he has meant, which is very good. We may embark on a journey to find meanings and impressions alone – with no luggage and totally free. And, perhaps, it is what those paintings are about.”
This sentiment captures the essence of Pener’s art – an invitation to explore and interpret freely, unhindered by narrative or analysis.
As the spring weather warms here in Vienna, Austria, the artist Penner (Bartek Pener Swiatecki) has been working again outside on new projects. One has led him to the stylish Weissgerberviertel neighborhood along the Danube Canal, where there are two buildings designed by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser: the Hundertwasserhaus, a quirky apartment building with colorful, rounded facades, and Kunst Haus Wien art museum.
Bartek Pener Swiatecki. Fire and Ice / 2023 / Austria / Vienna. (photo courtesy of the artist)
Here we have the backside wall of a hip summer city beach where people sit in folding chairs in the sand and sip cold beers and look out at the river. The Strandbar Herrmann is a little hip right now and legions will be here all summer. Better still, visiters will have a fresh mural called Fire and Ice by Pener to enjoy.
A fine artist and muralist from Poland, Pener is known for his bold and colorful style, which often incorporates geometric shapes and abstract forms. He has also completed murals and exhibitions in several locations around the world. He has been featured in many top publications, including Widewalls, Juxtapoz Magazine, Hi-Fructose Magazine, and here on BSA.
Bartek Pener Swiatecki. Fire and Ice / 2023 / Austria / Vienna. (photo courtesy of the artist)Bartek Pener Swiatecki. Fire and Ice / 2023 / Austria / Vienna. (photo courtesy of the artist)Bartek Pener Swiatecki. Fire and Ice / 2023 / Austria / Vienna. (photo courtesy of the artist)Bartek Pener Swiatecki. Fire and Ice / 2023 / Austria / Vienna. (photo courtesy of the artist)Bartek Pener Swiatecki. Fire and Ice / 2023 / Austria / Vienna. (photo courtesy of the artist)Bartek Pener Swiatecki. Fire and Ice / 2023 / Austria / Vienna. (photo courtesy of the artist)
Fire And Ice / Strandbar Herrmann / Wienna / curated by IOnArt. Vienna / Austria
A new book here features six years of selected works from a Polish graffiti writer, muralist, and professor of art and painting at a secondary school in his hometown of Olsztyn, Poland. He reckons that his life is one of ‘Planned Freestyle,’ meaning that having structure imposed upon him is very helpful in focusing his creative mind. You may quickly appreciate this characterization if you know any artists.
The collection of selected works here by Bartek Swiatecki is as luminous and optically rewarding to the viewer as they are opaque to the mind and stirring to the heart. With prolific and gently evolving abstractions in movement, you can see an artist at work, at play, and at his personal best – topping his previous work. The grandson of another painter and professor (of philology), Miroslaw Swiatecki, and the nephew of a famous painter and animator, Marek Swiatecki, perhaps it was only a matter of time before this 90s graffiti writer moved into more formal practices on canvas and walls.
In an in-depth interview, Pener reveals his sometimes complex feelings about the label of street artist, almost as if it diminishes his abilities and craft.
“Almost all of my friends I paint with are graduates of art faculties at universities or academies; most of them are architects or graphic designers,” he says. “Each of us works hard, so I get angry sometimes when we are labeled street artists because it is a huge simplification.”
The sentiment rings true, although we have never had anything but respect for street artists, regardless of their formal training. We witness a struggle for definitions at nearly every juncture along this graffiti/street art/fine art/mural art/contemporary art continuum.
In the end, the work speaks for itself, as this book can attest.
This fresh new survey of Polish artists primarily born in the 1980s is called RETRANSMISSION__ . It has as much to do with the influence of digital arts as it does with the plastic arts and art in the street.
This group collection at the Denver location of Mirus Gallery may possibly represent a physical lynchpin to the coming metaverse, minus the Oculus headset. A professionalized crew of artists formally trained in studies like architecture and urbanism, illustration, graphic design, painting, typography, and sculpture; These are not the kids on the street who popularized first and second-wave graffiti of the West, but rather the students of the scene infused by lore and not necessarily beholden to it.
“This collective of artists have lived and worked amongst each other,” says the gallery press release, “individually and sometimes through collaboration for many years, establishing a contemporary style unique to Poland.”
To mention that a certain number of these artists have a past in graffiti/street art culture sets the context of the artist’s common background, but those influences appear through mirrors, or software filters, if at all. You may look for deconstructed letter forms or raw off-kilter placements of elements, but this is such a self-aware, contemporary tableau, one may need x-ray vision to see the street from here.
Spray tags, skateboard graphics, street interventions, and covert acts of illegal artmaking may be influences in this corner of the street scene – one that has matured in the last decade and a half to embrace geometry and sophisticated illustration. It’s maturity now and development of a visual language that brings one to RETRANSMISSION__ where we are currently meditating on form, texture, refracted light, and balanced composition.
Featured Artists: Bartłomiej Chwilczyński, Bartosz Janczak, Chazme, Lukasz Berger Cekas, Lukasz Habiera Nawer, Oskar Podolski, Pawel Ryzko, Bartek Świątecki (Pener), Robert Proch, Sainer, Seikon
RETRANSMISSION_ At Mirus Gallery in Denver, Colorado is currently on view to the general public until July 8th. Click HERE for more details and schedules.
The genesis of Pener’s new wall in Olsztyn, Poland goes back a year ago. He and Krzysztof Dąbkowski, who is the director of the Municipal Public Library of Olsztyn, agreed on the idea that the project should reflect the literary tradition of Warmia and Mazury, the Polish region in which Olsztyn is located.
Says Pener, “Specifically intertwined with the notion of “Atlantis of the North”, the author of which is the poet and writer Kazimierz Brakoniecki. I am very open to this type of synergistic projects that can significantly encourage reflection on our identity. As a creator and artist, I wanted to create something more than just an illustration for a literary text”.
25 years in the game, Pener routinely lets his mind travel to encompass possibilities, then channels them abstractly through a series of echoing geometric forms with aerosol and brush. Here in his hometown of Olsztyn, Poland, he says he imagined the possibilities that young minds inside an elementary school could contemplate.
While painting this new “Mirror Land,” he was in a land of mirrors psychologically. He says he prefers to explore the “possible tension between our subconscious and conscious abilities that oscillate between reality and illusion.”
That’s a lot for kids to vocalize, granted, but he says he still engaged them when they watched and asked questions.
“Those were wonderful moments to hear them trying to solve what the wall depicts and hides,” he says.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
Bartek Świątecki AKA Pener. Mirror/Land. Olsztyn, Poland. (photo © Darek Brodowski)
