Kornel Leśniak
Kornel Leśniak, photo by Michał Maliński, courtesy of Jak Zapomnieć Gallery
Kornel Leśniak (b. 1999) – a graduate of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. Working with oil painting, embroidery, and written word, he explores strategies of empathy and emotional phenomena emerging at the intersections of different aspects of collective generational experience. Through the lens of his own lived reality, he addresses the interwoven nature of queer anxiety, embodiment, and the longing for belonging.
He has participated in numerous exhibitions, including Watch Out, Just Wait Till My Therapist Hears About This! at Galeria Podbrzezie, Looking for the Place Where I Begin as part of the OpenEyes Art Festival, The Discomfort Arrives at Dusk at Zachęta National Gallery of Art, the Crashclub project during Warsaw Gallery Weekend with Galeria Dawid Radziszewski), the group show Each Rivulet, Each Pulse, Each Vein, as well as solo exhibitions Pearls Don’t Bite at Jak Zapomnieć Gallery and That Saturday When We Went Underwater at BWA Ostrowiec.
Exhibitions
2025
Bitter Arcadia, Crone, Vienna
Ta sobota, kiedy wyruszyliśmy pod wodę, BWA Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, Poland
When Doors Close, Walls Rise, Jak Zapomnieć Gallery, Kraków, Poland
2024
Each rivulet, each pulse, each vein, Jak Zapomnieć Gallery, Kraków, Poland
Pearls don’t bite, Jak Zapomnieć Gallery, Poland
Tak naprawdę nigdy nie wyjechaliśmy, Cracow Art Week, Poland
Słońce westchnęło i zaczęło zachodzić, Szałfynster, Katowice, Poland
MNFST, Metropolitan, Warsaw, Poland
I tu też, Rondo Sztuki, Katowice, Poland
Hi Stranger, Who Is Pola, Warsaw, Poland
2023
SKINDEEP, C U at Sadka, Kraków, Poland
Muzyka Protestu, Rondo Sztuki, Katowice, Poland
Crash Club, Pawilon Bliska 12, Warsaw, Poland
2022
Niepokój przychodzi o zmierzchu, Zachęta, Warsaw, Poland