Here is a Photo Recap of Sepe’s recent Solo Exhibition which took place in London last week. The exhibition “The Golden Age of Grotesque” opened at London’s Lawrence Alkin Gallery. Below is a well written statement about Sepe and the Exhibition.
GF
SEPE: EVOLUTION OF REVOLUTION
The path from graffiti to canvas is no longer a trip only the select few take, and Sepe, too, has been down that road. It is still a rare thing, though, for the end product of such a trip to resonate with such extraordinary social sensitivity and just sheer craftsmanship. Yet this is exactly what happened in the case of one of the most talented painters hailing from Poland’s street art scene – Michał Sepe Wręga.
Sepe had been a straight-up graffiti artist for many years. His tags and works could be seen in the streets of Warsaw and other cities. He had been part of the diaspora that absorbed the energy of the city, breathed the air of its streets and listened to their music.
It is that time and those moments that taught him to capture in a most extraordinary way the dynamics and energy, the speed and force of the ever-changing present-day metropolis. In Sepe’s canvases these qualities become the all-but imperceptible backdrop to what is actually shown.
The skills he mastered at the Fine Arts Academy meet the controlled chaos of the school of street art. Sepe’s works manifest an almost uncanny ability to juxtapose extremes in a harmonious way.
Where so many artists focus on depicting contemporary reality through pictures of walls and buildings, Sepe instead concentrates on the human.
The artist notices that individuality is on the verge of extinction – as if today’s humans existed only within a group, and defined themselves solely through assimilation. In his work the individual is being unceasingly tested, like a crash test dummy in a tunnel. Individually we feel the pressure which is only lifted when we succumb to the force of the crowd. The safe acceptance of collective consciousness, that – according to the artist’s vision – often leads to savagery and herd instincts.
Him/Us – the protagonist of Sepe’s works is thrown into the whirlpool of contemporary life, the same current that permeates Warsaw, London and New York City, shaping people in one another’s likeness. This current is precisely what Sepe captures in his canvases. This is why his paintings, while being strictly aesthetic, also make a statement about the here and now.
The world as seen by the artist is not necessarily a reassuring place. His works are a summing-up of the human condition and the state of the world – or perhaps even a warning about the place we are heading towards. Are we willing to hear that voice?
