Everard Read Gallery in Johannesburg recently opened its doors to Continuum, a striking new series from Andrzej Urbanski, the Poland-born, Cape Town-based artist celebrated for his bold abstract paintings and meticulous steel sculptures. Across the exhibition, Urbanski continues to explore the complex dualities of masculinity, showing how strength and tenderness coexist in unexpected, captivating ways.
In Continuum, angular, vibrant shapes meet softer, muted forms, creating a visual dialogue that feels both dynamic and contemplative. The birth of his son has deepened Urbanski’s reflection on masculinity, highlighting the gentleness that balances power. The exhibition traces these contrasts across canvases, sculptures, and installations, inviting viewers to sense the subtle negotiation between opposites: sharpness and softness, energy and calm, presence and absence.
Urbanski’s work is rooted in precision and process. His steel sculptures often begin as small cardboard models or digital sketches, gradually evolving through careful cutting, sequencing and assembly. Each stage presents challenges that shape the final work in unpredictable ways, making the process as central to the art as the finished piece.
His paintings are similarly exacting: canvases, whether curved or angular, are layered with oils, acrylics, spray paint, and drying solutions to produce textures that range from glossy to matte and smooth to tactile. Spray paint, in particular, allows him to remove the trace of the artist’s hand, creating an effect that feels almost digitally generated while remaining unmistakably human in intention.
The visual language of Urbanski’s work is influenced by memory, spatial encounters, and the sensory impressions of his past. Raised in Berlin after leaving Poznan, Poland in 1989, Urbanski was immersed in the city’s vibrant street culture, experimenting with spray paint as a graffiti artist before translating the medium into a fine art context. His compositions often suggest fragments of places, colors, or states of mind, layered into intricate geometric shapes described as “high” or “low” frequency. The high-frequency pieces are dense and complex, while the low-frequency works are quieter, unified by more subdued palettes.
Urbanski’s artistic journey is marked by persistence and experimentation. Since earning a masters in fine art from ECAL University of Art and Design in Lausanne in 2012, he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide, from Berlin to Geneva, Atlanta to Vancouver, and across South Africa. His first South African solo exhibition, Mindgame at Salon91 in 2015, was sold out, setting the stage for a career that has grown ever more ambitious. He is now represented by Everard Read and has held solo shows in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and London.
Emma Vandermerwe, curator at Everard Read in Cape Town, describes Urbanski as “a rare breed of artist who negotiates perfect applications and concrete designs with a focused ability for fresh and pertinent abstract experimentation.” Art commentator Mary Corrigall adds, “Urbanski has settled on a vocabulary and aesthetic that chimes with these times, though its lines extend back in time.”
Continuum not only showcases Urbanski’s technical mastery but also celebrates his conviction that art is a space where problem-solving, vulnerability, and creation are inseparably intertwined. Through this lens, the personal and the universal, the conceptual and the material, converge to form a visual language that resonates far beyond the canvas or sculpture. The exhibition is a testament to his ability to balance rigour and presence, structure and feeling, inviting viewers into a world where abstract forms carry both precision and emotional depth.
Continuum remains on view at Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, until December 12 2025.
