The practice
About
MR.SOAPSKI is a Polish contemporary artist working in dark surrealism, aerograph and large-format mixed media painting — spray paint and airbrush on canvas, alongside drawing and works on paper. The practice has run without interruption since 1996: thirty years in which the work moved from city walls to canvas, from realism to dark surrealism, without abandoning anything it learned along the way.
1996 — 2001
Walls
The practice begins in Polish graffiti. Letterforms, spray control and the discipline of working fast, outdoors and at scale. This period establishes the gesture that still underlies every painting.
2001 — 2007
Realism and drawing
A deliberate turn toward realism: anatomy, portraiture, light. Thousands of studies in graphite and ink build the technical foundation that later allows the figures to dissolve on purpose rather than by accident.
2007 — 2012
Illustration
Commissioned illustration and editorial work sharpen composition and narrative economy. Paper becomes a permanent part of the practice and later returns as the Paper Cutz cycle.
2012 — 2017
Large-format painting and aerograph
The studio scales up. Aerograph, acrylic and spray paint are combined into layered surfaces built over weeks. Horizontal Maneuvers begins here, translating the wall gesture into gallery format.
2017 — 2022
Dark surrealism
Figuration loosens into something stranger. The Phantoms emerge — portraits that appear and recede, made of glazing, sanding and re-painting. Pop-surrealist humour sits beside genuine unease.
2022 — 2026
Contemporary multidisciplinary practice
Painting, works on paper, mixed media and editions run in parallel. No single style is treated as the definition of the work; the practice is the subject.
Graffiti, realism, illustration, large-format painting, aerograph, acrylic, spray paint, mixed media, dark surrealism, pop-surrealism — one practice, thirty years.