Tytus Brzozowski
Tytus is a painter in watercolours and an architect fascinated with the urban spirit. He often presents the silhouettes of buildings and people thus creating colourful scenes bordering on the reality and fantasy. The city of Warsaw is the favourite object of his paintings. In spite of a note of surrealism, his paintings refer to the true history of Polish cities.
- I am seeking for a key to the true character of a place or of a local community. Quite often, I paint buildings that no longer exist or in surroundings untypical for them – he explained.
Sometimes, Tytus takes to means of artistic expression different than watercolour. This is what he did to paint the designs for five murals for Warsaw, a large-format picture book: Citynauts, and the landscapes of Warsaw in ruins for the film: After the Apocalypse.
Brzozowski’s paintings were exhibited during the Polish Culture Season in Ningbo (China), and the prestigious ARTLIFE festival in Moscow. They are also used by the Polish Touristic Organisation to promote Poland in the international fairs. Tytus Brzozowski’s specialty and his distinctive feature are lectures on Warsaw’s history and architecture.
The spirit of the city
In his watercolour paintings, Tytus is seeking the character of the Polish cities. Most often, he portrays Warsaw, which is vivid and full of large-city gloss on his paintings.
Sometimes, for example, in painting: Kraków-Sopot-Warszawa, Brzozowski combines the typical elements of various cities, thus weaving a broader story about Poland and its architectural roots. He willingly visualises metaphors thus conveying feelings or imaginations of specific place.
Drawing on specific buildings and the local traits of buildings and lansdcape, Tytus creates new fairy-tale worlds. Even though they are only on paper, they are real, recognizable and – for certain – they are local.
With Warsaw in heart - in the heart of Warsaw
Tytus says that he "will not paint Warsaw as a bad place”. In his paintings he shows its positive, joyful or nostalgic image. It is not just another city for him. Why – you may ask?
- Warsaw does not impose any glitzy splendour, does not offer infatuation from the first sight. Warsaw is inconclusive and full of mystery. Its charm depends on the complexity of the processes that have formed it, its complicated history, nostalgia full of emotions and the realized and abandoned ambitions.
You may talk about the problems that has been bothering the city for a long time. Warsaw is sometimes unfriendly for pedestrians, plastered with rubbish ads, full of racing cars and squares congested with them, but it has a great potential - the potential of change.
It is exciting to live in a city that is living through its most dynamic moments: it is growing, re-formatting, makes errors and learns from them and is always on the move. I love to seek the elements that has built its character and combine them together thus creating new worlds, which, although fairylike, continue to be ours and local.
I have an abundance of inspirations, since Warsaw is a city rich with places of diverse atmosphere, in which there is always something to discover.
Warsaw's mirrors
Tytus’ undertakings largest in size are mural designs. The largest of them, over 35 meters high, is in the Wolska street and presents its former development and the metropolitan tendencies which have always been typical for the Wola district and are visible even today.
- Murals are dedicated to the local recipient. I mean, his immediate surroundings, the history and the identity of his city - Tytus explained. Murals represent a specific form of artistic expression. It is an amazing feeling to see one’s painting in such a scale and to come to exist as a painter and architect in the city that I love. At the same time, murals represent high responsibility since they are made to last.
Vivid streets
- People play an important role in my works – said Tytus. The city as he sees it is always bustling and full of interactions. Colourful passer-byes appear at the most extraordinary places, including roofs and chimneys, adding energy to the scene and emphasizing the affiliations between humans and their surroundings.
The Brueghel is in the detail
When you look at the paintings by Tytus, we can see a great number of details – also funny and surrealistic ones. Dice, the Space Invaders stamps or people spotted in untypical situations are concealed in most of the scenes to remind the attentive observers how a jolly place a city can be.
The tens of tiny details are an effect of inspiration with the artistic output of Pieter Brueghel. Tytus Brzozowski appreciates Brueghel’s ability of a storyteller with a single painting, where you can long look for the aptly hidden details adding an extra content.