CURRENT ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: AGNIESZKA SZOSTEK

Agnieszka Szostek (*1982) is a Polish visual artist based in Kraków. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where she attended the classes of Sean Scully and Günther Förg. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses sculpture, installation, neon and video, as well as a thermoplastic imprinting technique she has developed. Her work explores the unstable relationship between bodies and images, focusing on transformation, memory and the traces left by time, use and human presence. Through the transformation of everyday objects and materials into sculptural forms, Szostek examines tensions between intimacy and absence, permanence and disintegration, the ordinary and the monumental. Recurring motifs of wayfarers, gargoyles and human–animal hybrids address themes of loneliness, belonging and identity, as well as the influence of social expectations and the gaze of others. Her installations often challenge the boundaries between observing and being observed, combining grotesque imagery, humour and tenderness with a sense of vulnerability and alienation. Since 2021, Szostek has co-run C U AT SADKA, an independent artist-run space in Kraków, which she founded together with Michael Biber.