LANDS OF SUPER BEINGS - solo exhibition of Kamil Kurzawa

Opening: 27 February 2025, 5:00 p.m.
Exhibition open until: Friday 25 April 2025

ArtBrut Gallery
& Studio for Socio-Cultural Inclusions
Wrocław, 46A Ruska Street

Exibition Artistic Mentor: Dominik Podsiadły
Producer: Janina Kudlaszyk-Wrotnowska

Kamil Kurzawa (born 1985) lives and works in Wrocław. Daily, he is associated with the OSTOJA Association for People with Disabilities in Wrocław. Among other places, LUE LU FOUNDATION / BRUT NOW and Galeria Tak in Poznań have presented the artist’s works, as well as the Wrocław Contemporary Museum (MWW) in their 2017 exhibition JOANNA PAWLIK FEAT.: KAMIL KURZAWA, DANIEL STACHOWSKI. SHELTER. In 2024 he took part in the group exhibition BEYOND TABOO XI. MYSTERIOUS, HIDDEN, SECRET at the ArtBrut Gallery in Wrocław. The 12th and 14th Teofil Ociepka General National Painting Competitions both awarded the artist’s works. He employs various artistic techniques, such as collage, drawing, painting, animation, and sculpture. He is also the author of a series he calls NOTEBOOKS, which present descriptions and images of beings from the artist’s universe. Kamil Kurzawa also creates stories, which he publishes on the Wattpad website: WORLD OF HEROES PART ONE: TWO LADIES IN RED and WORLD OF HEROES PART TWO: THE CONTINENTAL BOOK. He posts his works on his Facebook profile.

CURATORIAL TEXT
LANDS OF SUPER BEINGS

Kamil Kurzawa’s solo exhibition is an invitation to cross a mysterious gate enabling a journey through infinite space-time continuums. The artist draws inspiration from pop culture, animation and video games, showing us unique universes that are in constant transformation. He records their evolutions as extensive sequential cards describing individual figures, in which he meticulously collects the properties of a character or object - their powers and predispositions. The notebooks take the shape of extensive lists - they resemble mysterious illustrated charts or mind maps. Kamil Kurzawa not only designs the characters - he researches and develops them, their colours, armour, powers and places in the hierarchy. Traces of pop-cultural inspiration intermingle here with the artist’s personal mythology. Besides graphic notes, the artist also creates cardboard and ceramic spatial models of the characters or devices he creates. He is also the author of the first story in his saga series, presented at the exhibition: WORLD OF HEROES. At the exhibition, he will also show animations depicting the fantastic missions of magnificent creatures who wander between dimensions, also penetrating contemporary Wrocław. Thanks to such means, Kurzawa’s fictions gain an additional dimension, being a bridge between the cosmic narrative and the present.

In my opinion, however, such a classification seems inadequate, as it suggests the spontaneity and instinctive ness of the creative process, while in fact Kurzawa's works are the result of a deeply considered and consistently developed visual language. His artistic practice is not an act of raw, intuitive expression, but a precisely constructed system in which every figure, symbol and narrative has its place and function. This is art that consciously facilitates a dialogue with the tradition of comics, animation and role-playing games, and escapes easy definitions. Kurzawa is not an outsider - he is an independent artist who builds his own worlds without severing ties with the historical context of the imaginary.

The exhibition LANDS OF SUPER BEINGS is an attempt to create an area where stories about characters, their power and evolution not only reflect a fascination with visual culture but also show the creative process itself as a tool for taming the world. It is a space where each of us can discover our inner super-self and reflect on the importance of independent artists and their current place in the art field.

Dominik Podsiadły

Translations by Paweł Granicki