Karolina Ptaszkowska
My practice is grounded in painting and drawing, developed through self-generating systems where image, perception and material behaviour interact. Working across oil painting, watercolor, coloured pencil, textile painting and installation, I construct pictorial environments through pours, stains, diffusion and structural drawing.
Within these fields, forms shift between bodies, architectural fragments and radiant structures. Marks, washes and structural interventions negotiate unstable pictorial environments, allowing images to emerge through processes of transmission, interruption and condensation.
Conceptually, the work engages with ideas of distributed perception and reality as a negotiated field rather than a fixed condition. Painting becomes a site where atmospheric processes encounter structural attempts at organisation.
Recent works extend this research by exploring how diffuse atmospheres condense into structure through moments of event.
Lived Experience
I live and work in Bristol, UK. I gained my MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (PL) and completed the Turps Art School programme (UK).
KAROLINA PTASZKOWSKA
Born in Nowy Sacz, Poland.
Lives and works in Bristol, UK.
CV
EDUCATION
2019-18 and 2017-16 Turps Banana Art School, Correspondence Course / London, UK
2010-2005 Academy of Fine Arts, MFA in Painting / Warsaw, PL
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2025
> Consensual Hallucination; curated by Kristian Day; Haarlem Gallery; Wirksworth (UK) (solo)
> Axis; The Binder of Women, group show; 17 Midland Road; Bristol (UK)
2024
Energy Flows Where Attention Goes; SVA; Stroud (UK) solo
2023
> Bite; group show; SVA; Stroud (UK)
2022
> There's a real world outside; group show curated by Mark Conolly; Paint Talk & AHWNN Gallery, Ostend (BE)
> Diverse Pleasures; group shop curated by Ben Risk; Art at Alison Richard Building, Cambridge (UK)
2021
> Spelling; Galeria XX1; Warsaw (Pl) (solo)
> Painters Posting Paintings; group show curated by Joe O’Rourke, online
2020
> Residency Show; The Garage; Bristol (UK); (solo)
2019
> Garbage Pail Kids - group show curated by Kurt Beers, TopaintersTopaintings, online
> Cosmic Fishing - group show, Kosar Contemporary, Bristol (UK)
> Another Time, Another Place - group show curated by Adam Hedley, Bocabar, Bristol (UK)
2018
> Sightings - group show curated by Phil Root, Caraboo Projects, Bristol (UK)
> Paper Cuts - group show curated by Kristian Day, Saatchi Gallery, London (UK)
> Places Faces and Spaces - group show curated by Hedley Roberts; New Art Projects, London (UK)
2017
> Paper Cuts - group show curated by Kristian Day; Tripp Gallery, London (UK)
> 'EBC015' Painting and Drawing - three-person show; East Bristol Contemporary, Bristol (UK)
> We Are The Ones vol.1 - group show; CGK, Copenhagen (DK)
> Pay & Display Prize 2017 - group show selected by Daphne Wright & Beatrice Haines; Centrespace Gallery, Bristol (UK)
2016
> Bath Open Art Prize, FaB Festival - group show, 44AD Artspace, Bath, (UK)
> Hatched Plans - group show; Nest Gallery, Bristol (UK)
2015
> After-Images (Po-widoki) - three-person show; BWA Sokol Gallery, curated by Malgorzata Miskowiec, Nowy Sacz (PL)
2014
> Underneath It All - solo show, Hamilton House, Bristol, (UK)
2012
> Painters’ Night - group show, Praca Gallery, Szpitalna 6, Warsaw, (PL)
2011
> Start to Hangart - group show, Klima Bochenska’s Gallery, Warsaw, (PL)
> Diplomas at Lubelska - group show, Lubelska 33/22, Warsaw, (PL)
2010
> Active Side of the Unreal- The Final Show, ASP, Warsaw, (PL)
2009
> Modzelewski and His Students - group show, Kierat-1 Gallery, Szczecin, (PL)
2007
> Class No. 66 - group show, Young Artists’ Gallery, Warsaw (PL)
> Ptaszkowska & Yerka - two-person show, Gallery 011, Torun, (PL)
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES:
2020
> Bricks Bristol Micro Commission
> Residency - May-July; The Garage; Bristol (UK)
2019
> Longlisted for Beers Annual Open / Summer Marathon 2020
> Shorlisted to the ‘South West Showcase Open Call’, Gallery at Plymouth College of Art (UK)
2016
> Axisweb September Artist of The Month
> Shorlisted to the ‘South West Showcase Open Call’, Gallery at Plymouth College of Art (UK)
PRESS / FEATURES:
2022
> Art Licks Magazine, issue 27
2018
> ArtMaze Magazine, Issue 7 (print)
2016
> Axisweb Artist Of The Month, 2016
ARTIST TALKS:
> 2023 - Visiting Artist Talk, Bath Spa University, Bath (UK)
> 2022 - Visiting Lecture, Bristol School of Art, Bristol (UK)
> 2021 - Scratch Lab, visiting artist, Caraboo Projects, Bristol (UK)
> 2018 – Sightings Round Table, artist talk alongside Phil Root and Ross Taylor, Caraboo Projects, Bristol (UK)
> 2017 – Meet the Artists, artist talk alongside Michael Ditchburn, Felix Carr and Karanjit Paensar, East Bristol Contemporary Gallery, Bristol (UK)
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