Everyday Spaces
Alicja Bielawska’s work in the Galeria Studio Collection

Using materials such as fabric, ceramics, metal and wood, the artist creates spaces that elude clear interpretation, balancing between functionality and abstraction. Her works are distinguished by their subtlety, poetics of detail and deep reflection on the relationship between materiality and memory.

Galeria Studio’s collection includes the 2021 installation Through Half-closed Eyes and 3 works on paper from 2016: crayon drawings from the series The Difference is Contained in the Scale (III), Exercise I and a gouache on paper, Exercise II.

Alicja Bielawska, known for her spatial works, in her drawings reduces her means of expression to lines, shapes and rhythm, balancing between the organic and the geometric. Bielawska’s lines, often soft and understated, seem to flow freely as if they were a gesture of the moment while remaining thoughtful and precise. Each trace on the paper is a dialogue between the intimacy of gesture and the spatiality of abstraction. In their modest yet refined form lies the essence of her work: the memory of touch.

In the realm of fabric, Bielawska transforms delicate materials into sculptural forms. The objects she creates seem to be on the border between utilitarian object and work of art—as if retaining traces of touch, gestures and time. The fabrics are often arranged in organic shapes, resembling folds of cloth in motion, but they are also carriers of emotion and history, giving her works an intimate dimension. They provide a sense of physical shelter and warmth like curtains or drapes, evoking associations with everyday life and its rituals which make their mark in domesticated space.

Alicja Bielawska’s installations, regardless of the materials used, often resemble intimate stage sets in which a viewer can find elements of a familiar world—soft seats, screens, curtains. However, the artist changes their context and function, raising questions about what an object is, how we perceive it and what memories or emotions it may contain. Bielawska’s work can be read as a poetic commentary on modernity, where materiality and memory are intertwined in unobvious ways. Through a delicacy of forms, the intimate nature of the materials and in subtle dialogue with space, Bielawska redefines the everyday, emphasizing its multidimensionality and meaning. In her art lies both sensitivity to detail and a deep awareness of the relationship between object and human.

Natalia Andrzejewska