MIRAGE:
photography & drawing
drawing & photography
MIRAGE is a visual language suspended between photography and drawing.
A process where documentation dissolves into gesture, texture and memory.
Photography sees.
Drawing remembers.
“It is something truly extraordinary that two young people — a young married couple, young artists — work together. In two different techniques. I must honestly admit that I had never encountered this kind of technique before. And it is fascinating to experience these works while reflecting on so many things…
I will not speak about their biography. Everyone here already knows that these are exceptionally talented people. A photographer. A graphic artist. A painter. It is fascinating to see how outstanding photography can be combined with outstanding drawing…”
prof. Lech Majewski
President of the International Poster Biennial,
Profesor in Accademy of Fine Art in Warsaw,
Doctor Honoris Causa
“This has never existed in art before…”
prof. Stanislaw Wieczorek
Graphic artist, Dean of the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw,
recipient of the Award of the Minister of Culture and Art,
and the Honorary Badge “Meritorious for Polish Culture”
The exhibition MIRAGE by Aneta and Filip Gębski, presented at the Warsaw Gallery of Graphics and Posters, is an intriguing dialogue between tradition and contemporaneity. The artistic duo invites viewers into a journey through reinterpretations of masterpieces by the great masters of painting — from Leonardo da Vinci and Vermeer to Klimt and Dalí. These timeless motifs, however, are violently removed from their museum frames and relocated into a raw, black-and-white urban landscape. Classical iconography merges with the textures of peeling walls, concrete streets and monumental billboards.
The narrative axis of this post-apocalyptic reality becomes worn paint tubes. The artists imbue them with human characteristics, transforming them into guides, silent observers, and at times performers reenacting emotionally charged scenes, such as the classical Pietà. Elsewhere, the same tubes contemplate Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian with ironic distance.
Through a unique fusion of photography and precise drawing, the Gębskis’ exhibition becomes a profound reflection on the condition of contemporary culture and the very substance of artistic creation.
Nina Rozwadowska
Andrzej Stroka
Graphics and Poster Gallery
40 Hoża Street, Warsaw, Poland
MIRAGE is an original technique created by Aneta and Filip Gębski, based on the fusion of photography and drawing into a single, organic image.
The process begins with a photograph developed or printed on handmade paper, chosen for its ability to preserve the depth of blacks, subtle tonal transitions and the structure of light, while simultaneously allowing the artists to intervene in the image through drawing.
Each work is created entirely by hand.
The drawing is made without the use of an eraser — every graphite mark remains final. The delicate structure of the paper demands absolute precision, making each line both a conscious decision and a search for light.
Depending on the concept, the artists work with both soft 9B graphite and ultra-fine 0.1 mm lines, constructing images suspended between documentation and illusion.
In the MIRAGE technique, photography does not complete the image — it becomes its beginning.
Drawing does not illustrate the photograph, but gradually transforms it, leading towards a final surreal composition.