Professor Beata Cedrzyńska’s exhibition *P O D O B L I Z N Y. My Connection to Photography* at the Night of Museums at the BWA Gallery in Jelenia Góra

During Museum Night at the BWA in Jelenia Góra, there will be a meet-and-greet with Beata Cedrzyńska, combined with the premiere multimedia presentation *P O D O B L I Z N Y. My Connection to Photography*.

The event will be led by Joanna Mielech, an art historian and head of the exhibitions department at BWA. It will take place on May 16, 2026, at 6:00 p.m. at the BWA Gallery in Jelenia Góra, located at 1 Długa Street.

The presentation is part of a research project launched in 2024: Podoblizny. The title, a portmanteau of the words “likeness” and “scar,” evocatively refers to a resemblance that bears the mark of intense psychological experiences. The metaphorical mode of representation, achieved through formal experimentation, is closely linked to the realm of personal experiences.

Most of the works from his recent artistic period were created using an innovative technique he developed himself. It is a blend of photography, collage, manual drawing and painting, a complex process of destruction initiated during the creation, and computer graphic processing, resulting in works digitally printed on fabric, paper, or translucent glass panels evoking associations with X-ray films.

As Ingarden wrote: "Plunged in time, to himself as a being independent of time eternally yearning, man feels threatened by the passing of time and the unknowable nothingness of tomorrow. Without realizing it, he wants to escape from himself, to forget himself. He tries not to see that he is constantly passing away, that with each passing moment he ends like burning embers (...). In order not to feel alone and a stranger in the world, he creates for himself the fiction of duty to something that is not actually there, that is unimportant, but that he has created for himself and to which, without admitting it, he gives the appearance of momentousness and existence (...). He thinks he is building a world around himself and himself in this world, and meanwhile he is suppressing his own fear of the emptiness that threatens him. And because of this, he is already becoming an emptiness all the more today."

Funding: Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology / City of Jelenia Góra

Beata Cedrzyńska was born in Gdańsk and earned her degree from the Faculty of Painting and Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, supervisor . Teresa Miszkin. From 2002 to 2012, she was employed at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. She obtained her habilitation degree in 2016 at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. She currently works as a professor at the Faculty of New Media Art at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology. She is the author and participant of approximately 170 solo and group exhibitions in Poland and abroad: the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain, Russia, Macedonia, and Moldova.

The works were presented by institutions, museums, and galleries including: the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York, the National Museum of Art of Moldova in Chișinău, the Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello Art Museum in Venice, the National Museum in Gdańsk, the National Gallery of North Macedonia – Cifte Hammam, the Regional Museum of the Kalisz Region, the Pomeranian Dukes’ Castle in Szczecin, the Jacek Malczewski Museum in Radom, the Castle Museum in Malbork, the Stanisław Staszic Regional Museum in Piła, “Książ” Castle in Wałbrzych, “Galeria EL” Art Center in Elbląg, Tadeusz Kulisiewicz Center for Drawing and Graphic Arts in Kalisz, GSW “Stara Kopalnia” Center for Science and Art in Wałbrzych, Baltic Center for Contemporary Art in Słupsk, Medina Art Gallery in Rome, Kaas Gallery in Innsbruck, Sandhofer Gallery in Innsbruck and Salzburg, Brotzinger Art Gallery in Pforzheim, Elements Contemporary Art Space in London, the “Wielka Zbrojownia” Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, the “Zana” Gallery of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Lublin, the “Rogatka” Gallery of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Radom, the State Art Gallery in Sopot, “Wieża Ciśnień” Culture and Art Center Gallery in Konin, Municipal Art Gallery in Legnica, Jan Tarasin Art Gallery in Kalisz, Art Exhibition Office (BWA) in Kielce, BWA in Rzeszów, BWA Sanocka Gallery, BWA Galeria Zamojska, BWA in Piła, MBWA in Leszno, BWA in Olkusz, BWA in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, BWA in Bielsko-Biała, BWA in Bydgoszcz, BWA in Wałbrzych, BWA in Tarnów, and BWA in Szczecin.

Recipient of numerous awards, honors, and scholarships, including: the Grand Prix of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Award and the award from the quarterly magazine “Format”10. the National Review of Young Painters “Promocje 99,” an honorable mention at the 1st International Festival of Theater and Visual Arts “Zdarzenia” 2000, the Mayor of Gdynia Award – Grand Prix of the 6th International Biennial of Painting and Unique Textiles Gdynia 2011, an honorable mention at the 4th International Painting Biennial “Quadro Art” Łódź 2014, Cultural Scholarship from the Mayor of Gdańsk 2014, Honorable Mentions from the Jury at the 25th Festival of Contemporary Painting, Szczecin 2016, Grand Prix at the 7th M. E. Andriolli International Drawing Competition in Nałęczów 2021, Finalist at the Osten Biennial of Drawing, Skopje 2022 / Macedonia.