“To move forward, one must repeatedly return to the past, go back to the beginnings, circle back, and visit places already well known”, states the exhibition’s curatorial letter. As a reflection on Sigmund Freud’s concept of the compulsion to repeat, The Subtle Charm of Obsessions represents the idea through visual language. The cyclical process of psychoanalysis – returning to what is known or what has been rejected – echoes the notions of rhythm and memory evoked by the pieces displayed.
Opening on April 25, 2025, at the City Museum of Wrocław – Royal Palace, the multidisciplinary exhibition curated by Jerzy Zajączkowski emphasises the contradiction of the Freudian process with artists departing from a familiar motif and “placing it in new contexts, structures, relationships, and tensions, shaping a completely new, autonomous, and previously undiscovered quality”. It leads the visitors through a uniquely implicit meditation on the compulsion to repeat via intersections of various media – painting, glass, fabric, and more.
The Subtle Charm of Obsessions brings together artists who have developed their practice in Wrocław, as well as prominent figures working across Poland. The pieces that will be exhibited on the walls of the Royal Palace baroque residence (now a modern exhibition centre) range from geometric abstraction to crocheted three-dimensional work. The curator’s approach oscillates between sculpture and painting in his exploration of colour, leaving the support seeping into the surrounding environment through irregular forms. With complementary artworks such as the ones referencing embroidery, the interplay between the fragment and the whole becomes all the more compelling, and where to repeat a memory, a gesture, or a form becomes a rhythmic, dynamic, macrocosm, open to such dialogue with its environment.
Tamara Berdowska
Tamara Berdowska (b.1962), originally from Rzeszów, is currently based in Kraków, where she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts. Her work includes hypnotic geometrical abstractions as well as installations. She is particularly intrigued by the moment when the technique and the craft behind her paintings begin to disappear, and the piece transforms into a sort of spectacle, a phenomenon of itself. The process starts to take effect through the repeated application of new layers of paint.
With rhythm being a key element of her work, it manifests itself in circles radiating soft, wave-like patterns. The space between the piece and the spectator holds significant importance to Berdowska. Her installations also demonstrate a sense of awakening, but through the integration of their environment. The visitors of the gallery space alter the piece simply by passing by.
Monomoka (Katarzyna & Monika Gwiazdowskie)
The collective under the name of Monomoka was created by twin sisters Monika and Kasia Gwiazdowska. They have been active in the contemporary scene since 2013, when they debuted with their participation at the Singapore Furniture Design Awards with the Grand Award for Hive and the Merit Award for Artichoke.
The two sisters have a strong technical background, both having completed a Master’s degree in Architecture at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology in 1999, providing them with a deep understanding of the relationship between form and function. Raised in a Poland still marked by scarcity, the Gwiazdowskie sisters searched for an alternative to the surrounding aesthetics from a young age. Having learnt how to crochet, sew, and knit early on, they have now integrated traditional techniques into their artistic practice. Their structures, complex in their form and imposing in their dimensions, almost all consist of small crocheted elements – stitched together through hand embroidery, assembled into organic shapes.
Michał Misiak
Michał Misiak (b.1973), originally from Tarnów, pursued his degree in Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, graduating in 1999. As of today, he runs the drawing and painting studio in the Faculty of Interior Architecture. He works with painting, drawing, spatial forms, photography, and digital animation. Through geometrical abstraction, Misiak offers a meditation on the perception of beauty granted by the symmetry of forms, such as those evoked in the Pythagorean philosophy. His geometrical compositions with vibrations of light and colour spread outside of the canvas, stretching beyond and into the open space. These efforts mirror the boundless reality surrounding the spectator. A rhythm can be observed, echoing electromagnetic waves.
Misiak received a scholarship from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and his work is exhibited among others in the Kulturhistorisches Museum in Görlitz (Germany), Museum Jerke in Recklinghausen (Germany), the Mazovian Centre of Contemporary Art Elektrownia in Radom, and the International Triennale of Graphic Art in Kraków.
Filip Moszant
Filip Moszant (b.1987) is a Polish-French visual artist working in painting, drawing, and large-scale print-based installations. Born in Avignon, he currently lives and works in Warsaw, where he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Moszant works primarily with acrylic markers and pens on paper and canvas, reflecting on the relationship between the intimate hand-drawn marks and the monumentality of the canvas. Gesture and rhythm are at the core of his practice.
His work does not reside in narratives but is evocative of landscapes, memory residues, and emotions. At once, the artist’s pieces are not strictly attached to a concept but are meant to be felt and experienced in the moment and space in which they exist. With this emphasis on their physicality, the spectator is to complete the paintings through their reception. Only by renouncing rigid interpretation, the viewer can fully surrender to the immersive nature of each piece.
Moszant has exhibited at Galeria Spokojna, PKO Bank Headquarters, and major group shows, including Bielska Jesień (2017, 2021), Dystans Art Competition (Special Mention, 2020), and Coming Out (2017).
Monika Rubaniuk
Monika Rubaniuk (b.1972) derives great inspiration from the natural environment. The artist has expressed feeling an enduring connection to nature. With glass as her medium, the artist creates sculptures resembling bushes with meticulously finished branches. Some of the pieces, round in their overall forms, contrast with the sharp edges that compose them and, by that, refer to the microspheres of viruses and bacteria. Other works present various household objects, including bowls, plates, lamps, or candle holders. The link with nature is maintained, with her work often integrated into the landscape. Her multicoloured sculptures hang on trees or stand out embedded in the ground. Rubaniuk’s work does not rest solely on the manipulation of the chosen medium, but its meaning relies closely on its relationship to the environment.
Rubaniuk received her diploma from the Faculty of Ceramics and Glass at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław in 1996. The same year, she received a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and Art and joined the painting department, where she further pursued her studies until 2001. Her work has been exposed in multiple solo exhibitions and over 50 group shows in Poland, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, and Sweden.
Andrzej Sobiepan
Andrzej Sobiepan graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. In 2011, he attracted the attention of the contemporary art scene by hanging his painting at the National Museum in Wrocław – a performance that aimed to trigger a consideration of the situation the young artists find themselves in. He has exhibited his work in numerous solo shows, mostly with performance and installation.
Sobiepan’s body of work is characterised by a holistic approach. His work with painting reliefs and centric arrangements calls for a different category of objects. He selects unconventional objects and materials for his pieces. The artist uses acrylics, oil paints, leather, plaster, and resin. His monumental three-dimensional pieces appear as microscope images translated to a macro scale. Sobiepan creates metaphorical work and draws parallels to the field of physics, referencing the Big Bang theory, among others. He attempts to capture the essence of the event, representing the moment of coexistence of energy and matter, the potential for both creation and destruction.
Martyna Ścibior
Martyna Ścibior (b.1985), an alumnus of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, completed her diploma in 2012. The following year, she introduced a new medium to her practice – remnants of nail polish collected from other women, in line with the idea of collective efforts of a community. The meaning of her works becomes intertwined with the repeated gesture of applying the medium onto the canvas. Mimicking the painting of nails, the process references repetitive tasks traditionally performed by women, such as knitting, crocheting, or embroidery.
The nervously wondering lines of colour in her pieces become united by the arduous nature of their formation. Her work does not merely evoke the subjugation of women by socially assigned duties. We are faced with a visual manifestation of recognising these activities as able to enter into the domain of personal autonomy, reclaiming them as personal choices. The emotionally charged titles facilitate this reading.
Weronika Teplicka
Weronika Teplicka (b.1981), born in Koszalin, graduated in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań in 2007. Today, she is represented by Molski Gallery. Her media include painting and photography, but she doesn’t limit herself and also works with unconventional materials. In her work, we see themes such as memory, the passage of time, overproduction, and consumerism. She employs recycled materials, family memorabilia, as well as her own paintings in the creation of new objects. Teplicka surrenders to the nature of the medium of photography in her new project. “I do not set specific frames or create narratives, photographing only what is within the camera’s range”, she says, explaining how such a conscious choice mirrors her use of pre-existing materials.
Since 2020, she has been working on the project Stories of Everyday Life, which serves as a documentation of her life. Teplicka’s works are held in the Collection of the Bielsko BWA Gallery, among others. She collaborates with the Foundation for Discriminated Groups, Fala Równości, conducting workshops.
Jerzy Zajączkowski
Jerzy Zajączkowski (b. 1972), originally from Wrocław, remains deeply attached to the city. He studied sculpture, painting, and graphic design at the Wrocław Academy of Fine Arts. The time spent in Munich working with one of the leaders of emotional abstraction, Sean Scully, turned out to be critical for Zajączkowski and his art. After his stay in Germany, he began to experiment with colour, boldly moving away from monochromatism.
His stay in Dublin also profoundly affected Zajączkowski, in particular the mosaic-like quality of the brick-based architecture. The notion of rhythm and repetition remains fascinating to the artist. His most celebrated pieces present merged microstructures of vibrant points, oscillating between the media of painting and sculpture, with his geometric and emotional abstraction paired with the curved and protruding metal support – first steel sheets, and later lighter aluminium. Experimenting with pencil and watercolour crayons, the artists eventually committed to the rhythmic gestures granted by the paintbrush. These geometric patterns coexist with a multitude of colour points, naturally revealing tensions between the forms.
Olga Ząbroń
Olga Ząbroń (b.1985) was born in Kraków, where she obtained her diploma in Painting from the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, where she currently holds the position of a professor. Ząbroń’s exploration of geometrical abstraction has gained recognition in Poland and beyond, with multiple solo exhibitions and over 140 group shows. She works with painting, drawing, three-dimensional work, and installations, where, through geometric shapes and pulsating lines, structures of inner tensions emerge under her fingers. The artist employs rhythmic forms which appear suspended in fields of colour. A new dynamic energy is generated, yet a sense of silence accompanies the compositions.
Between 2013 and 2018, she participated in the International Open-Air Workshops for Artists Using the Language of Geometry, organised by Dr. Bożena Kowalska. In 2020, she received the Second Prize at the 10th Triennial of Polish Contemporary Drawing in Lubaczów – the line is an element which also structures her painted composition. Ząbroń’s work is also held in the collections of the Jerke Museum in Recklinghausen and Kulturhistorisches Museum Görlitz in Germany. It is also exhibited in the OSTEN Collection Skopje in Macedonia. In Poland, it is held in Mazowieckiego Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Elektrownia in Radom as well as Muzeum Kresów in Lubaczów.
The Subtle Charm of Obsessions
Royal Palace, the City Museum of Wrocław
April 25 – June 1, 2025
