Opening Exhibition | "Rough Tenderness" | Izabela Siemiątkowska at Bacalarte

About the event

Opening Exhibition | "Rough Tenderness" | Izabela Siemiątkowska at Bacalarte | Agnieszka Becler, Curator 📅 Date: 19.08.2025, 19:00 The exhibition runs until 11.09.2025 - Wednesday to Saturday | 16:00-19:00 Izabela Siemiątkowska’s "Rough Tenderness" at Galeria Bacalarte is a painterly narrative that begins where others tend to avert their gaze: behind lace curtains, in shuttered windows, on the skin of neighborhood walls. The exhibition presents a selection of works from the artist’s two most recent series: "polish pantone" (2024-2025) and "Podglądaczki" ("Peepers", 2025). Here, the bodies of the paintings become vessels for memory and emotion. Hand-prepared canvases, painted with Siemiątkowska’s own technique, acquire a granular, almost abrasive texture. This rough surface becomes a frame for the subtle tensions hidden within seemingly ordinary scenes. Both series are shaped by a deep sense of place and a masterful command of color. In "Peepers", the act of looking becomes central — voyeuristic, curious, at times transgressive — yet ultimately reflecting the gaze of the viewer back upon themselves. It is worth noticing how the artist uses color in these paintings; she moves towards intense greens, reds, blues, and yellows, not seen before in her work. "polish pantone", by contrast, captures the atmosphere of Polish post-transition courtyards and neighborhoods, gently nodding to the charm of local visual culture. Siemiątkowska masters the usage of grays in a variety of shades and depth. She treats both the themes and the surfaces mindfully and with tenderness. The exhibition features several never-before-shown works. SHORT BIO Izabela Siemiątkowska (b. 1990) is a Warsaw-based painter and muralist. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2014), she creates easel paintings and large-scale murals inspired by urban landscapes and the relationship between people and space. Her work is marked by precise form, subtle color, and a balance between abstraction and narrative. She has received numerous awards and regularly exhibits and completes public art projects.