100 PANTHERS. 2021
- Apr 4
- 2 min read
This was my previous solo show, and it really started back in March 2020 when lockdown hit and everything stopped. I suddenly had nothing to do, no travel, no movement, stuck in Kraków, which honestly messed with me at first, but instead of drifting I just locked into a simple routine — I painted every day and went on long walks for a few hours, and that was pretty much my whole life for a while. Looking back, that period changed a lot because over those 2020–2022 years I got my health fully under control, lost 50 kg, and made over 90 paintings without overthinking anything, just showing up daily and doing the work. Towards the end of that time a friend of mine took over a space in Katowice that was meant to become a gallery and he offered it to me, so I picked June 2021 for the show pretty much on instinct and just committed to it. Around that moment my work was shifting into a new format — 100×80 and 100×100 cm acrylic canvases, more abstract, more reduced, trying to simplify things without killing the energy, and I spent long days and nights working through color and form, repeating, adjusting, pushing it until it felt right. We kept the opening tight and low-key, sent around 50 invitations mostly to people from the top end of the tattoo world, nothing loud because it was still the middle of the pandemic, but when the opening night came it completely exceeded expectations and around 180 people showed up, which felt like people just needed a reason to get out again and be around each other, and the show became that point of connection. I had 40 paintings on the walls, and a few of them I was still finishing inside the gallery just days before, changing things, adding details, not really letting go until the last moment, and I didn’t prepare any speech either, I just talked to people as they came, kept it natural. At some point during the night I stepped in and started working directly in the space, spraying parts of the walls and integrating canvases into it, turning it into something closer to an installation without planning it in advance, it just felt like the right continuation of what I was already doing. By the end of the night almost all of the works were sold, and for where I was at that time that felt like a real result, no hype, no big machine behind it, just work and the right people in the room. Big respect to Machinarium Gallery and Doctore because we really did something real there. Now it’s 2026 and I’m preparing the next show, opening again in June, exactly five years later, same approach, just sharper. Krakow this time.
Here's an article about that event in main Polish news portal:
Photodump:
And a Youtube short form:
