NEW YORK AND WARSAW SIDE BY SIDE

by Katarzyna Buczkowska – June 9, 2017

Stanisław Młodożeniec, Polish-born, New York-based artist in solo exhibition at Klimat Lounge in Manhattan through June, excites audience with the fluidity and dynamism of his vibrant cityscapes.

 

Miniature images of New York and Warsaw, two cities that Stanisław Młodożeniec calls home, adorn the wooden walls of the popular East Village bar-restaurant-gallery owned by Polish-born Piotr Koziej. Some are panoramic compositions sketched with an impressionistic brush, others are street vignettes with a touch of expressionistic flair. “Central Park”, featuring a woman reclining on the bank of a lake with nearby boating activity, creates a feeling of quiet respite. Warsaw’s “Puławska Street” in black and white bulges with presence and the liveliness of a busy moment. In “West 4th Street” the legendary Greenwich Village basketball court is crammed with athletic figures jostling in crowded motion under a scorching sun.

“I love this large beach painting, I stare at it and feel that I am on the sand,” said Judith George, co-host at the stand-up comedy club Laughing Buddha housed downstairs at Klimat, pointing to the only big painting of a sprawling beach on the Vistula River. The constellation of leisurely figures on the beach contrasted pleasingly with the animated nightlife mood inside the bar during the opening on June 1.

Janusz Gilewicz, also a Polish artist living in New York, praised the “free-hand style” of the miniatures, and their “impromptu character” that suited the metropolitan subjects in their constant movement. “The beauty is that there is also space for the viewer in these compositions,” Gilewicz said.

Delighted by the social commotion ignited by the success of the exhibition, Marian Żak, the president of New York Dance & Arts Innovations (NYDAI) under whose auspices the event took place, admired the dexterity with which the painter had arrested human subjects in full motion.

There is a poetic force and spirited energy that emanate from Stanisław Młodożeniec’s urban kaleidoscope which make his painterly New York and Warsaw reminiscences memorable.

When asked about the influence of his artistic dynasty of a family, poet grandfather and painter father and brother, Młodożeniec says: “I am not overly conscious of their influence, but I did grow up in a home with books and paintings being created all around me.”

Then a surprise. Just when you thought him a man of few words, he suddenly started reciting verses from his grandfather’s poem, accentuating phrases by widening his piercing green eyes, the smoke from his lit cigarette dancing by his temples. For a poetically prolonged New York minute you delight in a refreshingly bohemian vibe right there on the sidewalk in front of Klimat, among a lively miscellany of Europeans and Americans who came to celebrate his art.

Artist’s contact:
Stanisław Młodożeniec
917 283 0973
mlodozenyc3@hotmail.com
Works at:
touchofart.eu
piotrmlodozeniec.art.pl

Art Exhibition at Klimat from June 1 through June 30
77 E. 7th St. (near First Ave.)
New York, NY 10003