Anna Krasnodêbska Okrêglicka

Whichever medium I use, whether it is a printmaking or painting, my inspiration lately has been the passing of time, dying and rebirth. I mostly create figurative compositions; symbolism and colour are important to me. In the presented prints the form of diptychs emphasises the duality of the world.

The matrix is not used to reproduce the image, but to change it. Used in various juxtapositions, it allows to develop the cycle of the graphic story or to build a different narrative.

„No title 2”, 100 x 70 cm, own technique

„No title 3”, 100 x 70 cm, own technique

Born in 1960 in Chorzów. Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow (Department of Printmaking in Katowice). His degree show, developed in 1993, within the Printmaking Studio of prof. Stanis³aw Kluska and the Drawing & Painting Studio of prof. Maciej Bieniasz was awarded with a medal. Between 1996 and 2011 he was a curator of the ENGRAM Gallery in the Krystyna Bochenek Cultural Centre in Katowice. Since 2009, he has been involved with the Bieguny [Poles] art. project - a laboratory of ideas and exchange of experiences, in view of the expanding territory of new forms of graphic image. Academic tutor since 1997, obtained a status of a titular professor in 2020. Currently runs a Drawing and Performative Actions Studio at the Institute of Visual Arts at the Faculty of Art and Education in Cieszyn.Member of ZPAP in Katowice and the Association of the International Triennial of Graphic Arts in Kraków. His practice incorporates elements of drawing, printmaking and performance. Author of numerous individual exhibitions and participant of many national and international presentations and collective shows.Lives and works in Katowice and Koszarawa Bystra.

Adam Molenda commented in the catalogue of the exhibition "Graphic Polyptych" by Krzysztof Kula, presented at the ENGRAM Gallery in Katowice in 2000: "Distance. Above all, distance. Printmaking? What kind of printmaking? Only on the surface (...) ".

In his reflections, Adam Molenda called the printmaker's workshop "a safe haven of norms", suggesting that beneath its surface "a truly open and free nature can survive. The nature of the performer (...)". And he concluded: "Reality is being fulfilled before our eyes. Performance..."

The undersigned had a chance to witness the "Graphic Polyptych" at the University Gallery of the Art Institute in Cieszyn, where the author of the "Polyptych" is still currently employed. The large-format prints were displayed on the walls of the Cieszyn Gallery in an unconventional manner. My reading of these works at the time was focused mainly on their structure. In the elegant, classical intaglio prints, I found the fractal nature of their matrices, as well as in the compositional arrangements of the prints on the Gallery walls. I recognized the process and foreshadowing of Infinity.

A little later I became acquainted with the ENGRAM Gallery in Katowice, of which Krzysztof Kula was the animator, curator and a host. In the author's project "Poles", he organised meetings of artistic graphic duos at Engram and curated accompanying exhibitions. Since 2010, I have participated in various stages of this long-standing project. Consequently, on several occasions I have taken part in "polar" meetings with other printmakers, and I was able to experience successive transformations of Krzysztof’s Polyptych. In 2017, as I recall, I assisted in the graphic 'reincarnation' of the burned Polyptych matrices in the open air. At the 113 IP Gallery in Czêstochowa, in an installation on an ellipse plan, among the remains of these matrices, the stereoscopic animations "Ignis" and "Elevation" testified to the magical rites I had participated in and documented in Koszarawa-Bystraja.

Krzysztof Kula returns to Gallery 113 in March 2023. In the next rotation of his graphic galaxy, he will present the results of its evolution and transmutation of his Polyptych. Nothing is lost in Krzysztof's graphic cosmos. Therefore we might witness how his Polyptych resists entropy. Likewise life itself.

Thank you, Krzysztof.

Grzegorz Banaszkiewicz Kraków 2023