Montana Gallery Barcelona opened a solo show by Polish art duo Etam Cru on May 8, introducing a new body of work titled Ugly Heroes. Continuing their ongoing series of large scale murals that they’ve been creating all over the world, as well as on canvases, the pieces consist of a new series of paintings and drawings that balances on the border between surreal, figurative and realistic.
With both Sainer and Bezt having a firm background in fine art, being graduates of Fine Arts in Lodz, their paintings display great skills and rich imagination. These elements combined with their love and experience as graffiti artists results in unique and recognizable pieces. From the great feel for colors and the use of dimmed shades, to their energetic imagery and composition that often shows weightless and time freezing moments – these characteristics of their work have captured the attention of urban art lovers worldwide. Often repeating symbols such as arrows, crowns, skulls, cloth patterns, and birds, the works create a coherent entity no matter if they created the works separately or if they are collaborating on them. Their feel for using transparency in order to achieve dynamic, color shades in order to create a stronger surrealistic feel, or cleverly mixing realistic with fantastical or even abstract elements, made them some of the most sought artists as well as muralists.
The show will stay on view until the 28th of June. Both young Polish artists already have many plans for the rest of the year as well as US solo shows planned for 2015.
Photo credits by Laura Chacon.
Discuss Etam Cru here.
