Maurycy Gomulicki
Warsaw Girl - @ Warsaw
BIO
Maurycy Gomulicki is a visual artist, designer, photographer, collector, pop-culture anthropologist, and the creator of sculptures and neon installations. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Universitat de Barcelona, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan, and Centro Multimedia del Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico. He makes photography, objects, installations, videos, and animation. He also works in graphic design and book illustration. He calls himself a hedonist who is deeply devoted to and consistently promotes a “Culture of Pleasure.” The bright colors and pop-culture references are vital elements of his artistic practice. He often joins high culture with kitsch and erotic phantasmagoria, even pornography. Gomulicki has made a number of large projects in the public space. His works have appeared in many exhibitions in Poland and abroad. He collaborates with Warsaw’s leto gallery. He lives and works in Poland and in Mexico.
Artwork
Warsaw Girl, neon, 2019
The neon Warsaw Girl project was specially commissioned by Hotel PURO in Warsaw for the space of the bar terrace that gives onto a sprawling panorama of the city. Apart from the three mermaid pictures, the after-hours terrace under the stars determined the pink neon décor depicting the titular Warsaw girl. The artist was inspired by a fragment from Julian Tuwim’s Polish Flowers, describing a “lovely Warsaw girl, with a prestellar electricity.” The artist writes: “The pink light of the neon pleasantly evokes the mood of a boudoir, the squinted eyes give the features a gentle touch, and yet there is something playful about them. My works simultaneously have vibrant colors and a formal simplicity. The experiments of Modigliani or Kulisiewicz are relevant here—I value reduction as a mode of expression, and neon, by its nature, encourages synthesis. The result is a portrait of a girl with a nice, soft mouth, a slightly retro hair-do and a head topped with a crown shaped like a stylized letter “W.” As far as I can tell, my princess has gained a crowd of admirers.”
