source: highlike

Bownik’s artistic practice arises from his performative activity which analyzes the relations of experience and power. Over time, the artist has changed his focus towards problematizing the conventions of imaging and representation. His works deal with youth, the reconstruction of values and the influence of cultural transformations on daily life. Bownik works out visual conventions present in the history of the culture, police archives and classic painting representations; he uses large format photography, performance, sculpture and video.
Photographer: Bownik
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source: culturepl
Paweł Bownik (born 1977) studied philosophy and sociology in Lublin before getting his degree in photography and multimedia from the Poznań Academy of Fine Arts. He lives and works in Warsaw, drawing inspiration from youth culture and reinterpreting contemporary themes using classic techniques from painting, archival photography and the golden age of 1940s cinema.
His start in photography was inspired by an irrepressible fascination with art. Soon he found his medium of choice, and explains that “large-format photography fulfills all my expectations with regard to the final image. I like a narrow focus, so I only work with this format”. He uses the camera as a tool to test the limits of visual conventions, to subvert its canons of representation and presumption, in the process creating a poetic form of photography that is both striking and unsettling. He injects a bit of the remarkable into the everyday, teasing the eye with its characteristic combination of the familiar and the uncanny. When asked about the way he sees the art of photography, he answers, “I don’t trust it in and of itself, so I make use of a variety of convention in my works”.
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source: kmagPL

W swoich pracach Bownik przywołuje i wykorzystuje środki stworzone przez fotografię studyjną i kino amerykańskie z lat 40. Rekonstruując inscenizacje filmowe buduje umowność tego świata. Czerpiąc inspirację z klasycznej malarskiej ikonografii, takiej jak martwa natura, portret z fotografii archiwalnej, przygląda się „sztuczności” w fotografii.