Mariusz WARAS
TRANSITION
3 Staszica Street
wall instalation
Mariusz Waras – born in 1978 in Gdynia, PhD, currently employed as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, where he runs the Street Art Studio. He obtained his MA and PhD at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, from 2008 to 2014 he was an assistant of Prof. Jerzy Ostrogórski in the Painting Studio there, from 2010 to 2013 he led the Graphic Design Studio at the Faculty of Sculpture, then between 2013 and 2014 he was an assistant of Prof. Henryk Cześnik in his graduation Painting Studio. From 2014 to 2021, he led the Studio of Image and Street Art at the Faculty of Painting and New Media at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. In addition to his academic work, he is involved in graphic design, the creation of spatial installations and large-format painting. It is as the creator of murals, in particular the early project “m-city”, which has become, in a way, his stylistic calling card, that Mariusz Waras is currently recognised as one of the world’s most important street art creators. From the beginning, he has built his works around urban aesthetics, using architectural motifs, industrial infrastructure – including shipbuilding, means of transport. His style, although evolving, remains graphically modest and blunt. Among the initially dehumanised landscapes and machines in production and destruction, playing with the unlimited possibility of compilation in an ever-expanding lexicon of elements, space began to appear for statements of personal reflections, manifestos, sometimes taking the form of a succinct commentary on current events – a wink towards one of the sources of street art. Waras is also a curator of exhibitions and art events. He is co-founder of the think tank POGODA, which deals with the management of culture in its broadest sense. Since 2018, he has curated the DICTADOR ART MASTERS festival held at a distillery in the Colombian jungle. The venue is regularly visited by the world’s leading street art, urban art and contemporary art artists.
