The paintings of Paulina Stasik, a Kraków-based artist, though at first glance filled with allegories and symbols, are deeply rooted in her autobiography. They form an intimate, yet camouflaged, self-portrait over time. The year 2025 marks a turning point for her, as she reaches the age of 35. We encounter her symbolically at a crossroads—a suspended moment between what has been and what is yet to come.

The exhibition, presenting her latest paintings and works on paper, is an attempt to come to terms with her journey so far: childhood, the experience of growing up, memory inscribed in the body, and the relationships that have shaped her life. It is also a moment of reclaiming narrative, rewriting it not only through images but also through literary text, published concurrently with the exhibition as her first book.

Together, the works form a symbolic map of the artist’s path, referencing the traditional iconography of the “stages of a woman’s life,” present from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. Stasik consciously engages with this allegorical model to transform and challenge its patriarchal assumptions. Instead of reproducing the model of a woman’s life as a passive sequence of socially prescribed roles, she depicts a process of self-discovery, reckoning with the past, and reclaiming agency.

While rooted in personal experience, her paintings address universal concerns—such as the search for identity, maturation, and inner transformation.

The exhibition is accompanied by the launch of the book Self-Portrait with Tongue Sticking Out, designed by Agata Biskup, featuring the artist’s self-commentary as well as critical essays by Natalia Gierowska and Michalina Sablik.

artist: Paulina Stasik
curator: Michalina Sablik

dates: 19th October – 18th November 2025

photos: Szymon Sokołowski