Mirosław Urbaniak

• nickname Miras
• born 1965
• born in Oświęcim
• he lives and creates his works in London
• he specializes in illustration, comics and storyboard

“I love stories. And I love pictures. I love picture stories most”.

He studied visual communication at the External Faculty of Graphic Arts in Katowice of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. In 1990, he graduated from the study of prof. Michal Kliś. He has participated in exhibitions in Warsaw, Paris or Brussels. He runs Dots&Spots Ltd in London, where he creates storyboards and visualizations for the advertising industry.

The most important publications: “Un Western dans la Poche” (story and art), Caravelle/Glénat, 2005; “Jestem polskim Wikingiem”, “Newsweek”, 2009; “Biedronka” (story and art) in the album titled “Powstanie ’44 w komiksie. Antologia prac konkursowych 2009”, Egmont, 2010; “Doc Jackall & Miss Hype” (story and grahpics), Caravelle/Glénat, 2010; “Harmonijka” (art), story by P. Charlot, G. Szłapczyński, Glénat, 2012; “Ja Kosior”, (art), story by P. Timofiejuk in “Praga Gada. O pokoju”, “Kominiarczyk” (art), story by P. J. Olszewski, A Pagliaro, “Anioł ze zdjęcia” (art), story by M. Gajda, “Git Ptaki” (art), story by P. J. Olszewski in “Praga Gada. O międzywojniu”, “Sardynki tańsze” (art), story by P. J. Olszewski, “O honor rodu” (art), story by P. J. Olszewski in “Praga Gada Wiechem. Raz!”, Fundacja Animacja, 2014‒2018.

The most important awards and distinctions: 1st place in the competition for a comic about the Warsaw Uprising, the Warsaw Uprising Museum, 2009.

Flexibility is an expression used very often to describe Mirosław Urbaniak. He changes his techniques, conventions and colour schemes; however, his perfect method, recognizable and soft strokes devoid of sharpness as well as fluid transition of colours remain unchanged, regardless from whether he uses vivid colours or halftone black and white with various shades of grey.
Miras has mastered the use of chiaroscuro in pastel panels full of light as well as strong contrasts close to manga or the overdrawn cartoon style.
The features of his style include detailed illustrations; however, he sometimes creates purposefully simplified images with barely outlined silhouettes made of interpenetrating colour spots or the background devoid of unnecessary elements. The artist plays with the comics convention, e.g. he matches different letter styles to different characters: Nazi soldiers “speak” using gothic letters, and the Chinese – Chinese letters. Onomatopoeias become a part of the presented world and, for example, various objects fly through them.
What is characteristic of Miras is formal experiments with tiers of various width within the same page or with panels, i.e. a panel contains smaller panels with other temporal planes, close-ups or views from different angles. He sometimes resigns from the external border of a panel and then a speech balloon merges with the blank part of the page which does not belong to the comic or resigns from typical panels and then the characters with no background seem to be pasted on a white sheet of paper.

Mirosław Urbaniak Gallery

More information about the artist: dots-and-spots.com