Graduate of Media Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2015). Visual artist, works with painting, which she combines with sculpture. Lives and works in Warsaw. Represented by Wschód Gallery (Warsaw, New York) and Double Q Gallery (Hong Kong).

Karolina Bielawska’s visual language communicates a desire for harmony that constantly collides with violence, oppression, and brutality, turning the canvases into sites of tension and conflict. She takes chaos and totalizes it into patterns. The controlled figures have a soothing effect on our senses. There is a calmness in anticipating what might come next. Bielawska sees her works as products of her contemplation about feelings and the possibilities of portraying them. The internal and personal sphere is what the artist is preoccupied with. She also finds that the energy, the emotional charge, and the memory of a particular place influence her work, herein shaping a site-specific sensibility.

Among Bielawska’s distinctive methods is the use of bitumen paint. She shares the concept behind this strategy: “I started using bitumen paint a few years ago when looking for a material that would relate to a resistant, heavy, flooding mass, similar to asphalt. I painted a series of paintings that referred to the idea of home – as a dream asylum. I wanted to find examples of such houses in the urban space and I chose villas from the interwar period. One of them was demolished because it hindered the construction of a new asphalt road in Warsaw. I decided in some – but not literal – way to use such a destructive, flooding element in my own pieces. Bitumen paint turned out to be the right solution. I liked its earthy black and its roughness. I began using it in subsequent paintings and installations because it fit well into the broader context of my works – wrestling, struggling, persevering despite instability.”

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS AND PROJECTS:

2025

• Coalition of Waters, Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art, Słupsk, PL
• After the Rain, Mountains of Literature Festival, Sarny Castle, Ścinawka Górna, PL
• Why Not Here?, Wschód Gallery, Warsaw, PL
• Arsenał 60! On Collecting, Collections, and the Love of Arsenal, Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok, PL

2024

• Comebacks, Echo, Cologne, DE (solo)
• Seas, Night Skies, and Deserts, Wschód Gallery, New York, US

2023

• Connective Tissue, Warsaw Gallery Weekend, Wschód Gallery, Warsaw, PL (solo)
• Back To School, II High School named after King Jan III Sobieski in Cracow, PL

2022

• As Above, So Below, BWA Olsztyn, Olsztyn, PL (solo)
• Controlfriction, MOS, Gorzów Wlkp., PL
• Soft, Hidden, Exposed, Double Q Gallery, Hong Kong, CN
• Baitball Project 02, Palazzo San Giuseppe, Polignano a Mare, Bari, IT

2021

• Two Sides, Dobro Gallery, Olsztyn, PL (solo)
• Fields. Karolina Bielawska, Matthew Peers, Wschód Gallery, Warsaw, PL

2019

• The Other Room, Krupa Gallery, Wroclaw, PL (solo)
• Marrow, Miejski Ośrodek Sztuki, Gorzów Wlkp., PL (solo)
• Metamorphosis, Pola Magnetyczne, Warsaw, PL
• Stranger Danger, FOAF, Stone Projects, Prague, CZ
• First World Problems: Life Before Death, Rondo Sztuki, Katowice, PL
• First World Problems: Life Before Death, Stefan Gierowski Foundation, Warsaw, PL

2018

• Slow Down a Moment that Moves too Fast, Realny Obszar Działań, Warsaw, PL (solo)
• Articulations. Recently Painted Works, Glassyard Gallery, Budapest, HU
• The Draughtsman’s Contract, Arsenal Gallery, Białystok, PL
• Communication with Everything that Is, Stefan Gierowski Foundation, Warsaw, PL
• Weeping, Dreaming, Fucking, Laughing, Wschód Gallery, Warsaw, PL

2017

• Drift, Warsaw Gallery Weekend, Galeria Wizytująca, Warsaw, PL (solo)
• The Simultaneity of Events, CCA in Toruń, PL
• Biennale de La Biche, Grand cul de sac marin, Guadeloupe, GP

2016

• Mirage, Spectra Art Space, Warsaw, PL (solo)
• Later and Slightly Earlier, Art Pavilion, Warsaw, PL (solo)
• Among Faces, Państwowa Galeria Sztuki, Sopot, PL
• Empty, City Art Gallery of Kalisz, Kalisz, PL

RESIDENCIES AND AWARDS:

2023

• Scholarship of the Śródmieście District of the City of Warsaw, PL

2021

• Finalist of the STRABAG International Award 2021, AT

2020

• Scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage – Culture Online, PL

2017

• Scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, PL
• The Draughtsman’s Contract Residency, Arsenal Gallery, Białystok, PL

2015