Natalia Rak

Bestranged combines two words that aptly describe the past year: "strange" and "estranged". For months, we lived through a situation that was new and unsettling for all of us. We kept our distance, wore masks, avoided encounters and, to some extent, drifted apart from one another. What remained were feelings for which there were often no words.Art from LockdownThe exhibition presents a selection of works that reflect this time. They tell of people in an exceptional situation, of isolation and estrangement, of covered faces and the longing for closeness. Eight urban art positions have engaged with the experiences of recent months in very different ways: sometimes ironic, sometimes poetic, sometimes with oppressive directness.Get an impression of the exhibition in our video.FAKE Dutch artist FAKE is considered Amsterdam's best-known stencil artist, both on the street and on canvas. His vividly coloured works draw on icons of everyday life and pop culture, slightly provocative and always with a healthy dose of humour and irony. Among his best-known pieces is the award-winning "Super Nurse", a tribute to healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Guy Denning British artist Guy Denning combines a traditional painterly style with a contemporary, punk-inspired element: collaged and stencilled text that adds a further, often political layer of narrative to his figures. His works are held in several public collections, including the MAGI'900 Museum of Contemporary Art in Bologna.Jana & JS The Austrian-French duo has been painting together since 2006 and is known for multicoloured stencil works based on their own photographs. Jana & JS combine portraits with urban landscapes and architecture, deliberately choosing old materials that speak of the passage of time. After years in Madrid and Paris, they now live in Salzburg.Natalia Rak The Polish artist graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź in 2012 and has been creating large-scale murals around the world since 2011. Her luminous, mostly female figures draw on folklore and fairy tales and have a surreal quality. Her mural Legend of the Giants in Białystok, showing a girl caring for a real tree, was included in the street art series issued by the Polish Post.Otto Schade Born in Chile, the artist also known as "Osch" began his career as an architect and urban sculptor. He has lived in London since 2006, where his architectural understanding of space led him to develop his distinctive "ribbon" style. The intertwining bands shape his subjects and give them an almost sculptural presence.Shai Dahan Born in Haifa in 1979, Shai Dahan grew up in Los Angeles, where he started out as a graffiti writer at the age of 14. He has lived in Sweden since 2010 and gained recognition there with his reinterpretation of the Dala horse, the traditional Swedish wooden horse. In 2019, he painted what was then Sweden's largest mural in Borås.Sokar Uno Born in Gotha in 1987, the Berlin-based artist found his way to art through the graffiti scene in the late 1990s. His partly realistic, often dark figures look as if they had been broken apart and reassembled, like fragments of a bronze sculpture. Self-taught, he processes current events as well as personal experiences and states of mind in his work.STF Moscato Born in 1976, Marseille artist Stéphane Moscato, aka STF, is a child of punk. For many years, he has been peeling entire layers of posters off the walls of his city and mounting them onto canvas in his studio. Using stencils and spray paint, he creates unique works guided by these street fragments, through which a social and political stance subtly shines.

A year full of exhibitions, encounters and new works is drawing to a close. To round off the year, we are bringing together 16 artists who shape the Pretty Portal programme in a large group exhibition. There is no overarching theme, but instead a broad cross-section of the diversity of urban contemporary art.Prints and EditionsOne focus of the exhibition is on prints and editions. Screen prints, woodcuts and other printmaking techniques have a long tradition in urban art. Closely linked to the history of the poster and the stencil, they make it possible to bring a pictorial idea to a wider audience in a limited edition. As a rule, the sheets are signed and numbered, and with hand-pulled editions in particular, small variations make each impression something special.For collectors, editions are an ideal way to get started, and for many a chance to own works by their favourite artists. And anyone still looking for a special gift will find a real treasure trove here, especially in the run-up to Christmas.16 PositionsOn show are works by BTOY, DECYCLE, FAKE, Fin DAC, ICY & SOT, L.E.T., Limow, Natalia Rak, Otto Schade, PDOT, Pixelpancho, Roman Klonek, Rowan Newton, Shai Dahan, Sokar Uno and Wolfgang Krell. The range extends from stencils and paste-ups to figurative painting, drawing and woodcuts. Artists from Düsseldorf are shown alongside international positions from across Europe and the USA.YEAR END SHOW 2016Opening Friday, 2 December 2016, 7 – 10 pmExhibition 2 December 2016 – 10 February 2017Pretty Portal Brunnenstraße 12 40223 Düsseldorf

Doll-like people revealing their inner mechanics. Figures on an emotional rollercoaster between abyss and ecstasy. Protagonists whose contours blur, lost in confusion and alienation. At first glance, they are "lovely people", but there is more behind them.Behind the FacadeIn Lovely People, we present paintings and drawings by Natalia Rak, Pixelpancho and Sokar Uno. All three explore what it means to be human and look behind the facade of human existence. Pixelpancho addresses machines becoming human or, conversely, humans turning into robot-like beings. In luminous colours, Natalia Rak tells stories of abysses, ecstasy, fear and romance. And Sokar Uno shows his protagonists in states of confusion and alienation.Natalia RakWith luminous colours, wonderful compositions and a deliberately female perspective, Natalia Rak brings a breath of fresh air to the increasingly global urban art movement. Her paintings tell stories and captivate the viewer with an almost magical intensity. Since graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, she has shown her work in the USA, France, Austria and Poland and has been invited to numerous renowned urban art festivals, where she has painted epic, facade-high murals. In 2013, she won Art Battles in New York. That same year, art magazines voted her mural Legend of the Giants one of the five best urban artworks of the year, alongside works by Banksy and JR.PixelpanchoPixelpancho has a special bond with robots: they are the ever-recurring theme of his work."I am driven by a forgotten world, hidden beneath a thick layer of dust and dirt. There are robots there, creations of humankind, battered and worn, a symbiosis of the organic and the inorganic, their bodies of rusty iron falling apart. Full of dreams, desires and hopes." (translated)In his surreal visual world, humans, puppets and robots merge into images alluding to major commercial brands, superheroes and famous pop icons, all of them subject to constant change and threatened by decay. Pixelpancho convinces not only through his striking motifs, but also through his unique style, which draws on many and varied sources.Born in Italy, he studied at the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Valencia. On his many travels, he never missed an opportunity to take part in festivals and show his work in exhibitions. Pixelpancho is regarded as one of the new big names of the Italian urban art scene, which gradually developed around artists such as Blu and Ericailcane, the Fame Festival and Studio Chromie.Sokar UnoBerlin-based Sokar Uno is one of the exceptional talents of the East German graffiti scene. An illustrator and restorer who grew up with the spray can, he caught our attention some time ago with his sensitive works. With his solo exhibition Depth of Loneliness in New York, he has made an impressive entry onto the international stage. In his works, Sokar Uno explores the spreading loneliness of our urban existence: alone together. Socially compatible individualists, scourged by the city we live in and left, no doubt hungover, in the role of our lives. With his familiar surreal depiction of protagonists in everyday situations, Sokar Uno provokes a slowing down."Lovely People" Natalia Rak · Pixelpancho · Sokar UnoExhibition from Friday, 8 April 2016Pretty Portal Brunnenstraße 12 40223 Düsseldorf

A girl in a checked dress climbs through an ornate gilded frame into a glowing jungle with houses perched in its trees. Like Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, she steps into another world. It is precisely this threshold between reality and dream that is Natalia Rak’s realm.Paintings That Tell StoriesNatalia Rak’s paintings show dreamlike, surreal scenes and often seem to have sprung from a fairy tale. Above all, however, they are narrative: every painting is a story, and every story captures a very specific moment. In Not This Time, a boy sits at the end of a jetty. His feet touch the water, but he does not dare go any further: something might be lurking down there. And indeed, beneath the surface, eels writhe, their gaping jaws making them look almost like moray eels. What we see down there is his imagination. Everyone knows this feeling from their own childhood: the fear of wading into a lake because something might be waiting beneath the surface.When Imagination Becomes RealIt is precisely these moments that Natalia Rak captures. They are concrete scenes, and at the same time they speak of something universal: the power of our imagination, which can become so real that we are afraid of it. In Blind Man’s Bluff, a blindfolded young woman in a red dress steps over the edge of a rooftop into the unknown, high above the city, watched only by two pigeons. And in Forgotten Feelings, a woman with a tear-blue face holds her own heart in a glass jar, as if she had locked it away for safekeeping. Rak’s paintings remain open. It is the viewer who finishes telling the stories, and who often recognises themselves in them.The Courage of ColourRak paints with great courage of colour. Luminous red meets turquoise, glowing orange meets deep green and violet. Her palette owes its particular intensity to oil paint, which she often combines with acrylic. Her classical training shows in the assurance with which she renders bodies, fabrics and light: her figures are stylised, yet deeply realistic.From Canvas to FacadeWhether on canvas or on multi-storey facades, Natalia Rak’s visual language holds true at every scale. In 2013, the art magazine Hi-Fructose highlighted how her style and technical skill are equally convincing from canvas to mural. Her murals can now be seen around the world, with a focus on female figures and wonderful compositions. Among others, she has taken part in the Walk & Talk Festival in the Azores, the No Name Festival in France, the STROKE Art Fair and Art Whino.About the ArtistNatalia Rak was born in Poland in 1986 and has been interested in art since the age of ten. She studied fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, graduating in 2012. The young artist is quickly gaining recognition in Polish contemporary art circles and is also attracting international attention: in 2013, she won Art Battles in New York, and that same year her mural Legend of the Giants in Białystok was voted one of the five best urban artworks of the year, alongside works by Banksy and JR.“Through the Looking Glass” Natalia RakOpening Friday, 11 April 2014, 7 – 10 pmExhibition 11 April – 9 May 2014Pretty Portal Brunnenstraße 12 40223 Düsseldorf

From Painting to Stencil: the show FACE OFF at Pretty Portal, presents different perspectives from international Urban Artists, on the topic portrait. Ben Slow C215 David Monllor Fin DAC Guy Denning Natalia Rak Onur Dinc OrticanoodlesWolfgang Krell Ausstellung 14.6. - 20.07. Vernissage 14.6. 19 – 22h