A Postcard from Lisbon marks the culmination of a summer art residency by painter Amadeusz Pucek at Her Clique. This exhibition presents a body of work created during his time at our Lisbon space. Stepping away from the familiar visual codes of his hometown Warsaw, Pucek spent the season observing a distinct sensory environment. The resulting paintings serve as a raw, textured visual diary, reflecting on temporary belonging and unrefined realities.
Pucek arrived in Lisbon with a specific artistic objective: to engage with an atmosphere unburdened by personal associations or contexts. As the artist notes, his goal was to study his surroundings “in a purely painterly way, with no preconceived notions or expectations.” By setting aside past judgments, he focuses on quiet imperfections rather than seeking idealized scenes. Throughout this body of work, Pucek explores unconventional beauty across still life, landscape, and portraiture. It is the odd, the unusual, and the flawed that he finds beautiful within each genre. His practice documents the overlooked and the raw, translating these moments onto canvas with heavy impasto and deliberate abrasions.
This new setting provided a stark contrast to the structured, familiar geometry of Warsaw. Lisbon confronted the artist with an entirely different materiality: calçada pavements, peeling plaster, and most of all the relentless, bleaching effect of the Atlantic sun. The coastal air and the city’s steep, undulating topography forced a shift in his bodily perception of space. Rather than romanticizing the city’s famous vistas, Pucek reacted to the immediate tactile qualities of his new surroundings, using the raw grit of Lisbon to redefine his palette and brushwork.
The landscapes on display reject traditional, balanced compositions. Instead, Pucek cuts images off abruptly. This technique echoes the unedited way we encounter nature and architecture in the daily life. Through these unconventional crops, the paintings move beyond simple documentation, mapping the borderland between public areas and private sensory experience. The canvas becomes a tangible site of tension, marked by visible fractures, uneven surfaces, and weathered layers that mirror historic, tangible structures.
This interest in imperfection also shapes his still life paintings and portraiture. Moving away from pristine arrangements, Pucek captures flowers past their bloom, focusing instead on the rich textures and organic changes of decay. Across all subjects, his focus remains on the compelling nature of the flawed.
The exhibition title references the postcard — a medium that connects travel culture with personal correspondence. In Pucek’s work, the postcard format becomes a framework for an intimate dialogue with his audience and a quiet moment of self-reflection. The intense summer light of Lisbon is translated into heavy, tactile paint layers rather than romanticized imagery. Ultimately, A Postcard from Lisbon invites viewers to slow down. It encourages an appreciation for the weathered, the incomplete, and the blemished.
Her Clique is pleased to present this new series, which captures everyday moments preserved in paint long after the summer season fades.