Galeria (I piętro)
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One Can Make a Mistake usually, it is something said after the fact — to defuse awkwardness, justify an error, or quickly close the subject. Today, a mistake functions like a system glitch: something to be immediately corrected, smoothed over, or concealed. The images circulating around us grow increasingly sealed, retouched, optimized, stripped of hesitation.
It is precisely this moment of uncertainty that interests Karol Lewalski. His works do not depict extraordinary events. Instead, attention shifts toward peripheral situations: light spilling across a gas station, empty passageways, dust suspended in the air, or traces of presence that are about to disappear. These are images of seemingly insignificant moments the kind that are easy to overlook, yet difficult to completely forget.
This way of seeing is also reflected in the technique itself. Linocut offers no comfort of undoing a gesture. A mistake cannot simply be painted over or corrected with a single click. Every incision remains. Decisions are inscribed into the material without the possibility of revision. In Lewalski’s works, error is not a failure, but part of the process: a trace of the hand, a moment of hesitation, an attempt to find the image before it becomes too obvious. Perhaps it is precisely where something escapes control that there is still space for an experience other than procedure.
Karol Lewalski is a graphic artist and academic teacher. He lives and works in Gdańsk and comes from the Masurian region of Poland. In his artistic practice, he has developed an original method of large-scale color linocut combined with painterly interventions. Professionally, he is affiliated with the Academy of Fine Arts and WSB Merito University in Gdańsk. He leads a studio focused on composition and visual structures, while also teaching graphic design, animation scenography, and advanced artistic printmaking techniques.
Lewalski organizes exhibitions, plein-air workshops, and educational programs, and regularly participates in conferences and symposia devoted to art. He is the recipient of the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage Award for outstanding artistic achievements, as well as numerous prizes and distinctions in national and international competitions. He is the author of fifteen solo exhibitions and has participated in around fifty group exhibitions. At the center of his work remain the evolution of perception, the fleeting nature of changing beauty, and the transcription of emotion into image.
