AGNIESZKA SZTEJERWALD | self-control
📅 29.01.2026–13.03.2026
⏰ Opening: 29.01.2026 at 19:00
Curator: Anna Szyjkowska-Piotrowska
We begin 2026 at Galeria Elektor with Agnieszka Sztejerwald’s exhibition “Self-control.” In the exhibition the artist treats the image as a tool for introspection and for working with emotional tension. Painting becomes a record of bodily and psychological experience, and the creative process gains significance equal to the final form. The artist confronts the external world with inner fears and imaginings, creating intimate, emotional portraits stripped of literalness and narrative stability.
The exhibition is not a collection of autonomous objects but a space of experience in which image and body mutually permeate. “Self-control” becomes a meeting place ‒ demanding, intimate, sometimes uncomfortable ‒ where control is not a goal but a starting point for deeper reflection on what is ambiguous, changeable, and hard to grasp.
Agnieszka Sztejerwald – artist born in 1994 in Warsaw. She works in painting, photography and video art. In 2020 she graduated from the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. In 2029–2020 she received the rector’s scholarship for top students. Her diploma “Hating the Image” was included in the exhibition of best diplomas ASP COMING OUT in 2020. Her work addresses autobiographical, personal and intimate themes, which she frames as painted (most often self-portraits) and photographic portraits. She treats the process as equally important as the resulting work – this allows her to break away from routine, repetitive everyday functioning. She confronts external appearance with an introverted world of fears and imaginings. “I paint to transcend myself, seeking the right expression for emotions; that matters more to me than reproducing reality. Each canvas is an emotional portrait – an honest, intuitive journey into intimacy”. Major exhibitions: “Femme avec un serpent” (Herisson, France 2025, Musee d’Art de Contemporian de Herisson); Artland Antwerp Expo (21.12–24.02.2024; Antwerp; Galerie Verbeeck Van Dyck), “Fruits from the deep sea” (Antwerp, 2024 Galerie Verbeeck Van Dyck), “Differently than in Paradise” (Galeria Żak, Gdańsk 2023), “Hating the Image” (Nowosądecka Mała Galeria 2021), “H.A!” exhibition in duo with Helena Stiasny (Ośrodek Kultury Śródmieście, 2020), “Mothers of Independence” (ASP 2020), “Castaways of Meaning” (Galeria Salon Akademii, 2029), “100/40” (ASP 2029), “Wihajster/Freitag/Swallow” (Galeria Salon Akademii, 2027). Since 2022 she co-creates the artistic collective Time New Roman together with Jakub Słomkowski and Dawid Wojtalewicz.
