During the Polish Art Week, the 6ht Avant Art Festival Berlin invites you to Urban Spree Galerie to discover the works of 6 young Polish contemporary artists.
The group exhibiton "Hardcore & Soul" features the works of Paulina Hendigery, Inga Wójcik, Stach Szumski, Mateusz Sarzyński, Eternal Engine, & Krzys Bykowski.
The vernissage will be on Thursday, June 19th from 19:00 to 22:00.
Free Entry.
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Stach Szumski (born in 1992 in Gdansk) works in painting, creates installations, sculptures, prints, drawings and interventions in public space.
He graduated from the Faculty of Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, but owes his creative education primarily to grassroots practices related to the exploration of Lower Silesian vacant buildings where he has created numerous interventions over the years. His visual identity and direction of exploration were influenced by his love of geology and the history of human cultural evolution. From 2013-2016 he co-founded Warsaw’s V9 gallery. From 2015-2020, together with Karolina Mełnicka, he led the Nomadic State project – an art collective and fictional nomadic micro-state. In his works he quotes and deconstructs iconographic motifs used in human communication from its origins: from prehistoric wall paintings, Neolithic petroglyphs or medieval symbols to contemporary graffiti and deconstructed logos, in his work he blurs the boundaries between the very contemporary and the archaic.
Paulina Hendigery (born 1984 in Lublin). Draughtswoman, painter and reconstructor of architectural details. Graduate of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. Currently lives and works in Chicago, USA where she initially went to take part in a professional exchange program and has remained there.
On a daily basis, she works on scaffolding in the restoration of architectural detail, stone and sculpture. She creates her artistic works using drawing techniques where the main medium is crayon and its different variations. She draws because she “has to”. – It is the power of her expression, a need, an element of everyday life. Through art she externalizes her emotionality and the often grotesque and “bizarre” nature of her works shows how she perceives the world and the laws that govern it.
Mateusz Sarzynski (Biłgoraj, 1990) graduated from the Architecture Department of the Krakow University of Technology and then in graphic design from the University of Fine Arts in Krakow. During his artistic career, he has worked in a variety of media, including painting, tattooing, and graphic design. The artist, who tries to send a message that is as direct and accessible as possible, nonetheless encourages the debate that can arise from political sub-meanings, dark images and the cultural background of the observer. Or, as he says of himself: “I am just a Polish guy trying to have fun with painting. It is easy for me to hide my intentions behind a known images that may at first glance seem obvious, but might be something more than that”.
Distancing himself from the pretense of a political narrative, at times so radical and barely superficial, the eye is guided by iconographies present basically in each of our cultural baggage. Characters taken from video games, cartoons, memes, or famous paintings populate scenes that also recall Brutalist architecture, all appreciated for their honesty and simplicity.
In his creative process, images are created as in a game of logic, in perfect balance between thought and emotion. The candor that distinguishes Sarzynski's creations can also be seen in his gestures: in the pursuit of straightforwardness, details that could be considered imperfect such as dripping color, here come alive with earnestness.
Eternal Engine is a queer artistic duo made up by Jagoda Wójtowicz (she/her) and Martix Navrot (he/his). Their projects combine audio-visual practices and the prototyping of virtuality, exploring the performativity of virtual space and the anomalies of transitional zones (3D, AI, VR, XR). In their practice, Eternal Engine use speculative and queer methodologies informed by the work of theorists such as Karen Bard to explore technological and quantum futures. To do this, they cross the boundaries of the real and the virtual in tiny, imperceptible steps, millimetre by millimetre, atom by atom, pixel by pixel. They are inspired by the aesthetics of digital folklore and technological fetishes.
Inga Wójcik is currently in her fourth year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In 2023/2024, she studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig. Wójcik's works question the relationship between language and reality. The description of things depends on personal experience; everyone defines them differently. She uses organic systems and forms to create her own universe, exploring the connections between objects. She emphasizes the ambiguity of interpretation and invites the viewer to play with the ordering of signs and meanings. The paintings introduce elements of notes, texts, and fragmentary forms, evoking traces of old narratives while exploring synesthesia—combining visual perception with sound and movement. The artist focuses on the process of expanding the image by borrowing systems from other categories: music, mathematics, and digital technologies.
Krzys Bykowski is interested in the process of decomposition of human creations and how nature reclaims spaces appropriated by humans. In his artistic practice, he recreates the visual processes of taking over the urban landscape by non-anthropomorphic organisms – lichens, fungi, mosses or growths. Through the techniques of hand-dyeing textiles, he creates portraits of creatures living in the shadow of man, whose presence is manifested in color, form and texture. His works carry dynamism and movement – echoes of invisible but ongoing biological processes. Bykowski’s work is a reflection on the passing of time, the relationship between culture and nature, and the future in which other life forms will take the place of humans.
