Karolina Jabłońska
1991 born in Niedomice
2010-2015 studies at the Painting Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow
2014-2015 scholarship at Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová, Praha
2018 artist in residence, Spinnerei Leipzig
Co-founder of artist-run-space Potencja Gallery and "Łałok" magazine.
Lives and works in Krakow.
Karolina Jabłońska’s painting combines the artistic licence of art brut and a neo-expressionist aura with the confessional power of modernists and feminists. The characteristic colour range of the paintings accentuates their dark eroticism. Jabłońska’s works burst with scenes of exaggerated sensitivity, ecstatic violence, and disturbing hallucinations. A lyrical subject appearing in many of the paintings is a young girl with unnaturally large, brown eyes—the artist’s alter ego. This rescaling is nearly obsessive, concealing both terror and defiant curiosity. Jabłońska’s heroines are girls from the disco, thieves, goddesses and fortune-tellers, and the connections and emotions both emerge and end violently—in passion. Here exaggeration and hyperbole are principles of both composition and life. The sweet sultriness of her painting draws energy from the literary motifs traced by the artist and from a direct response to a testosterone-driven reality. Her paintings are accompanied by works on paper, spray-painted using stencils.
Exhibitions
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
– Sleeping and Waking, Krupa Art Foundation, Wrocław, PL
- Which Way the Wind is Blowing, Start Museum, Shanghai, CN
2024
- How to be Invisible, Esther Schipper, Berlin, DE
- Preserves. Works from the years 2023-24, State Art Gallery, Sopot, PL
2023
– Dinner, Piana Gallery, Krakow, PL
2022
– Cold, Raster Gallery, Warsaw, PL
2021
- No Rest for the Weary, Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2020
- Room Tour (with Sophie Thun), Raster, Warsaw, PL
- Hyperbole, Zeller van Almsick, Vienna, A
2019
- No Man Is Big Enough for My Arms, Works on Paper Gallery, Vienna, A
2018
- Slippery, Raster, Warsaw, PL
2017
- Dziewczyna czy tygrys, Municipal Art Center, Gorzów Wielkopolski, PL
2016
- Human thing, Grey House, Cracow, PL
- Nowa para oczu (A new pair of eyes), Potencja Gallery, Cracow, PL
2015
- Maronka, BWA Tarnow, PL
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
- Don't Ask About Poland. From the Collection of Katarzyna Szafrańska and Wojciech Szafrański, Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń, PL
- The Human Situation: Marcia Marcus, Alice Neel, Sylwia Slight, Lévy Gorvy Daya, New York, US
– The Wojciech Fibak Collection. A New Generation, Mazovian Centre for Contemporary Art Elektrownia, Radom, PL
2024
- The Power of Monochrome, Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej BWA, Katowice, PL
2023
– Reconciling Apparent Contradictions, Esther Schipper, Berlin, DE
– Pictures Girls Make, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, US
– Basic Fit, Office Baroque, Antwerp, BE
– And In the Wilderness, BWA Warszawa, Warsaw, PL
2022
– Seven Stages in the Life of a Woman: Painting by Polish Female Artists, Willa Gallery of the City Art Gallery, Łódź, PL
– The Discomfort of Evening, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, PL
– Humoral Theory: Quattro Stagioni, Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała, PL
2021
- The Catalyst. Joseph Beuys and Democracy Today, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, DE
- Soft Matters, Raster, Warsaw, PL
- Mainly for Woman, SCAD Savannah, USA
2020
- Nightwatching (Cracow Art Week KRAKERS), Potencja, PL
- Bodylotion, Zeller Van Almsick, Vienna, AT
- Komisch’ Wetter, Galleria Doris Ghetta, Ortisei, IT
- All of Poland. The Journey to the Source of Art. Vol. 2, Gdansk City Gallery, PL
- On the Politics of Delicacy, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, DE
2019
- The Spirit of Nature and Other Fairy Tales, The Silesian Museum in Katowice, PL
- Sensations. Closer to the people, Kunstverein Schattendorf, A
- Self Portraiture: The Artist as Muse, SCAD Savannah, USA
- Soundcheck (Potencja), Rondo Sztuki, Katowice, PL
- Paint, also known as blood, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, PL
- Funny Games, Gussglashalle, Berlin, DE
2018
- New Perspectives: Leipzig meets Cracow, Spinnerei archiv massiv, Leipzig, DE
- Komunikacja ze wszystkim, co jest (Communication with everything that exists), Stefan Gierowski Foundation, Warsaw, PL
- Deal, Potencja Gallery / Warsaw Gallery Weekend, Warsaw, PL
- Ozimina (Winter crops), Widna Gallery, Cracow, PL
- Lifehack, Jedna Dva Tři Gallery, Prague, CZ
2017
- 43. Biennale Malarstwa Bielska Jesień, Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała, PL
- Szwung, Schwarz Contemporary, Berlin, DE
- No problem, Potencja Gallery, Cracow, PL
- „XY” New Generation Polish-Hungarian Painting, MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Arts, Debrecen, HU
- Seans (Seance), Szara Gallery, Katowice, PL
- Potency, Raster, Warsaw, PL
2016
- Interstelaż, Potencja Gallery, Cracow, PL
- 12. Konkurs Gepperta, BWA Awangarda Gallery, Wroclaw, PL
2015
- Wy-dalone, Potencja Gallery, Cracow, PL
ONLINE
- Jurriaan Benschop, Unease at its Best, "Arterritory", 07.10.2020 (EN)
- Karolina Plinta, Malarskie Baiao Bongo, "Szum", 01.02.2019 (PL)
- Stach Szabłowski, Najważniejsze obrazy malują artystki, "dwutygodnik.com", 12.2018 (PL)
- Karolina Plinta, Artystka w lustrze. O malarstwie Karoliny Jabłońskiej, "Szum", 07.07.2017 (PL)
