Statement

In my artistic practice, I move on many formal and problematic levels at the same time, often mixing or excluding them. I build a wide background, from which I extract individual threads and connect subsequent points. I am looking for non-obvious connections between seemingly distant phenomena.

I deal with painting, but the issues under consideration are often developed in other media, contexts and circumstances than those initially assumed. 

I started my artistic search by researching modern architecture, the concept of place and the ways of perceiving internal and external space, both in relation to buildings and to people. In my painting works I made visual transformations of architectural solids through texture, contrast and extremes in their presentation. It was an attempt to shift, or even exceed, the boundaries of the inner, emotional, intimate world and what is outside.  

At the next stage of my considerations, I enter the issues of contemporary cities perceived as a historical, philosophical, cultural and sociological phenomenon, as a changeable organism that I intend to study. When the means of painting expression are no longer sufficient, they are complemented by activities in space, installations and experiments with new materials and lighting. I also pay attention to the social and cultural identity of the selected places, the recognition of which I include in the process of artistic activities. 

Thinking about cities results in reflections on the current civilization problems related to climate change and its consequences for humanity. When studying successive utopian social, technological, urban and architectural theories, one discovers huge fear and the predominance of dystopian scenarios, but also a rational need to learn about all the mechanisms governing a dynamically changing reality. The observer’s curiosity accompanies the desire to seek good solutions both in the artistic expression and social activities, and in the attempt to outline a new, universal narrative on the border of art, philosophy and science. 

“By combining various facts, associating events and concepts, comparing them, juxtaposing or separating them, we find a new, three-dimensional space of sense. You can give it a metaphysical value, that is, transfer the meanings of ‘low’ to the high sphere and then you will see that different, incoherent and ‘unimportant’ parts of the world take on a different meaning.”

M. Smoczyński

Bio

Katarzyna Kowalska

b.1981, Rzeszów (PL).

In the years 2005-2009, she studied at the Faculty of Arts of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin (PL), majoring in painting and specialising in photography. Diploma under the supervision of Professor Walenty Wróblewski.

Currently lives and works in Warsaw (PL).

She is a visual artist who develops her practice in the area of painting, creates site-specific installations and objects. For her, artistic activity is an attempt to understand and describe in her own language the complex processes of the contemporary world, to find difficult to grasp and not obvious connections, to explore selected phenomena.

Her interests are related to the themes of the future, the city and architecture, place and its identity, as well as the meeting point of planes – the internal and external worlds.  She has systematised her artistic search in three main areas:

“What will be. Reflections on the future” – Possible scenarios of the future and the search for good solutions to the challenges of the present,

“Urban Space * Immersion” – observation of the relationships, laws and conditions shaping contemporary cities, reading the contexts and processing the connections of selected objects in a specific time and space,

“Inside / Outside” – an attempt to discover what is at the meeting point of planes – the inner and outer worlds in the context of both human beings and architecture, place. Observation based on unconscious, instinctive feelings perceived in retrospect as well as analysis according to preconceived criteria.

 

Selected Individual exhibitions:

2020

“Manual operating for Utopia Island” | Cultural Centre in Tarnowskie Góry, Przytyk Gallery | Tarnowskie Góry (PL)

2018

“Invisible cities” | Wejście przez sklep z platerami Gallery | Warsaw (PL)

2017

“Experiencing space” | BWA Sanok Gallery | Sanok (PL)

2015

“Planes as a record of space. Between perspectives” | House of Artist, Gallery 022 | Warsaw (PL)

Individual exhibition | Katarzyna Napiórkowska Gallery | Warsaw (PL)

Selected group exhibitions and competitions:

2024

“Things, Things, Things | Potato Library at Zielone OKO | Warsaw (PL)

2022

“Inner States 3” | Prześwit Gallery | Warsaw (PL)

2021

“Inner States 2” | Prześwit Gallery | Warsaw (PL)

“Ad Extremum. Interesting cases of head falling off” | exhibition in the framework of Otwarta Pracownia Lublin | tenement house at 6 Krakowskie Przedmieście Street | Lublin (PL)

“A better tomorrow was yesterday” | exhibition in the framework of Otwarta Pracownia Lublin | Labirynt / Plaza Gallery | Lublin (PL)

“Windows’21” | action in the framework of Otwarta Pracownia Lublin | store window at 2 Staszica Street | Lublin (PL)

“GEO” – exhibition from the collection of  Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre | Riga Art Space | Riga (LV)

2019

“The Sadness of Modernism: oppresion and depression” | The City Gallery | Wroclaw (PL)

Traveling exhibition after International Painting Symposium Mark Rothko | Rīgas Centrālajā bibliotēkā, Riga (LV) | Belarus National Center of Contemporary Art, Minsk (BY) | Vytautas Magnus University Gallery, Vilnius (LT) | MM Gallery, Brussels (BE)

2018

“Opdagelser 2018”| Galleri Heike Arndt | Kettinge (DK)

“Fresh Legs” | Galleri Heike Arndt | Berlin (DE)

2nd Contemporary Art Review “New Avant-garde”| Szyb Wilson Gallery | Katowice (PL)

2017

“Didaskalia” | Lublin Museum | Lublin (PL)

2016

Finalist “Ale sztuka!” competition | Artists’ Colony Foundation, Lower Town | Gdańsk (PL)

Fourth Triennial of Polish Contemporary Painting “Autumn Confrontations” | House of Art | Rzeszów (PL)

2015

“Bestiality” – an exhibition as part of the Night of Culture in Lublin | Pearl Breweries | Lublin (PL)

2014

“The image, graphic, drawing, sculpture 2014” | House of Art | Rzeszów (PL)

“Interference / Interferenzen” | Secondhome Project Gallery | Berlin (DE)

“Topography of color” | Piękno Panie Gallery | Lublin (PL)

XII International Autumn Salon of Arts “Homo Quadratus Ostroviensis” | BWA Gallery | Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski (PL)

2013

“Interference / Interferenzen” | Fort Sokolnickiego Art Center | Warsaw (PL)

Third Triennial of Polish Contemporary Painting “Autumn Confrontations” | House of Art | Rzeszów (PL)

2012

Finalist of the competition of Franciszka Eibisch Foundation | Napiórkowska Gallery | Warsaw (PL)

XI International Autumn Salon of Arts “Homo Quadratus Ostroviensis” | BWA Gallery | Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski (PL)

“Know is also to see” | BWA Sanok Gallery | Sanok (PL)

Residences and scholarships:

2020

2’nd International Painting Symposium “Silva Linarte” | Mark Rothko Art Centre | Daugavpils (LV)

2019

study visits as part of “OP_FAME Future art market education” programe | Ostrale, Dresden (DE) | Wro Art Center, Wroclaw (PL) | Warsaw Gallery Weekend, Warsaw (PL)

“Science in art, art in science” a Polish-Czech artistic and scientific symposium |Wygryny, Masuria (PL)

2018

14’th International Painting Symposium Mark Rothko “Painting our future together” | Mark Rothko Art Centre | Daugavpils (LV)

27 Internationales Landschaftspleinair “Schwemmland” | Kunstverein Schwedt e.V., Galerie Am Kietz | Schwedt/Oder (DE)

2017

International artsymposium “Art Circle” | Medana, Nova Gorica (SI)

2011

International plein-air painting for artists from Eastern Europe | Nagybörzsöny, Pest county (HU)

2008 – 2009

Scholarship: student exchange “Socrates – Erasmus” | Univerzita Hradec Králové | Hradec Králové (CZ)

Other activities:

2022

“Premises for rent” | artistic situation, group actions realized within the framework of the Wasteland Biennale | corner of Marszałkowska and Świętokrzyska Streets | Warsaw (PL).

2019

“OP_FAME Futute art market education”, conference and workshops | Op_enheim | Wroclaw (PL)

“The influence of science on creative process” | a lecture given during the Polish-Czech artistic and scientific symposium “Art in science, science in art”| Wygryny, Masuria (PL)

2018

“Utopia, space for imagination” | a lecture given during 14’th International Painting Symposium Mark Rothko | Mark Rothko Art Centre | Daugavpils (LV)

2017

“27 hidden images | individual art project realized during the Night of Culture 2017 | Lublin (PL)

Public collections:

Mark Rothko Art Centre, Daugavpils (LV)