Paulina Semkowicz / Rose Ras

Paulina Semkowicz - Conversation Piece
Text by: Agnieszka Dmochowska

Paulina Semkowicz lives and works in Vienna.
Her experience as a theatrical painter has inspired her interest in large-scale works, realized directly on walls as painting installations.

Merging traditional painting with immersive spatial art, she transforms surfaces into dynamic narratives, engaging viewers in the interplay between art and architecture.

She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and FBAUP, Portugal.
She exhibited at VIN VIN, Vienna; Galerie Laetitia Gorsy, Leipzig; Austrian Culture Forum, Warsaw; Galeria Presença, Porto, Belvedere 21, Vienna.

Rose Ras - Burning Bush
at
CONTRAPPUNTO,
the project space of VIN VIN, conceived and built by Martin Hotter, and embedded in the gallery space

Rose Ras (2001, St Jean du Sud, Haïti, lives and works in Paris), a final-year student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, is a young artist thriving through painting and sculpture. After studying applied arts from 2016 to 2018, she discovered in visual arts a deeply resonant means of expression. Her early works explore landscapes and automobile waste, reflecting a world in transformation.

Her varied and rich body of work combines painting and sculpture, addressing themes such as nature, movement, and deceleration. Each painting emerges from a creative process where photography, drawing, and sculpture converge. Rose quickly sketches her ideas, adding colors intuitively, embarking on a journey into the unknown. The painting gradually takes shape instinctively, incorporating various techniques and mediums, such as printmaking, painting, spray paint, sculpture, ceramics, tar, and more.

Among her works, one finds landscape scenes, uniquely framed artworks, textured paintings, and even sculptural installations utilizing unconventional materials like tires. The exhibited pieces seem to play with materiality and texture, inviting viewers to reflect on the relationship between the object and its environment. Each image is carefully curated to create a contemplative and sometimes enigmatic atmosphere, where art and nature intersect and transform one another.