He graduated from Faculty of Intermedia at Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, currently a PhD student of Interdisciplinary Doctoral Studies at University of Fine Arts in Poznań. Scholarship holder of Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 2013, laureate of Grey House Szara Kamienica Foundation (2015). Winner of the 2nd prize in Views 2017 Award. The artist participated in various group exhibitions, including “Embodied Action” festival, Hong Kong (2016); “GUYU ACTION Performance Art Festival”, Xi’an, China (2016); “Polish Performance Night”, Le Lieu Gallery, Quebec (2014). He created individual exhibitions, such as “Moro”, East Gallery, Łódź, 2013, and “Hiccups” exhibition as part of Kraków Photomonth Festival at MOCAK in 2014. He lives and works in Jarosław.
“Żółć (Bile)”, 2019
photography
Przemek Branas deals with objects, installation, sculpture, video, photography, and performance. His works deals with various topics; from sexuality through religion to art history and institutional criticism. A characteristic feature of his works – also visible in “Żółć (Bile)” – is a game based on the “romantic” principle of exposing human nature to the face of their “culture”. Żółć (bile) – is a word created only from Polish characters. It means, in addition to colour, a substance secreted in the liver, involved in the digestion of fat, as well as a feeling of anger and bitterness. Bile as a substance has been the subject of many chemical studies and analyses in history; certain character traits or dispositions were attributed to the activity of this fluid. Black bile was attributed, among others, to melancholics, and yellow bile to cholerics.
The “bile” inscription on the back of a young man, made with help of lamps in indoor tanning, is a kind of tattoo. Through associations with solar symbolism it can bring to mind the sign of a swastika that also carries a load of bad emotions. Anger are bitterness are perhaps the mildest of them. “The only thing I see in Poland today is the ubiquitous spilling bile.” – the artist writes in a commentary to his work. “Perhaps alchemical thinking about body fluids is totally truth in a country where black and yellow bile are still mixing together. Where balance and reconciliation are impossible. Perhaps all this is the result of our romantic nature, that, as Janion wrote, never died.”
