13th Curatorial Exhibition Bielska Autumn 2026 — Peripheral Vision

The curators of the exhibition Tomek Pawłowski-Yarmołajew and Piotr Sikora have turned to the phenomenon of the optical phenomenon, which is peripheral vision, to create a metaphor for a different view of contemporary painting of countries bordering on each other.

Curators Tomek Pawłowski-Jarmołajew and Piotr Sikora propose to shift the perspective of contemporary painting of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia not from the perspective of the dominant center, but from the perspective of Bielsko-Biała, a city located near the trijunction of borders, capable of building a Central European perspective.

Focusing on visual aspects, narratives and stories evoked by contemporary artists, the curators show an alternative order to the relationship between center and periphery and present painting as a medium for processing unstable reality.

At the exhibition “Peripheral Vision” we will see the works of 15 artists from Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the narrative of the exhibition, the tendencies visible in the painting of the region are signalled — concepts and metaphors such as: folk turn and cottagecore, religiosity and new spiritualism, the shakiness of the image and afterimages of reality, and dreamy introspections.

Tomek Pavlovski-Yarmolajew, Piotr Sikora:

The phenomenon of peripheral vision is based on the properties of the retina of the eye, the extreme areas of which are particularly sensitive to movement, light and contrast. When we do not look directly, we can see what escapes the direct gaze. So if we are interested in nuances, it will be easier to see them without looking at the center. We believe that this way of looking can be a good starting point for the exhibition “Peripheral Vision”, in which we have collected paintings from three countries of the region — Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. We were guided by a key based on the concepts of subtlety, luminosity, blurred edges and the atmosphere of mystery present in the works, which, in spite of the HD reality, propose blurred afterimages.

Recent years have brought a phenomenon in Polish painting that tends towards politically charged themes, articulating the experiences of minorities and attitudes in defense of tolerance, coexistence and individual rights. They were often accompanied by a language close to the painterly expression of the 1980s, combining saturated colors, memes, aesthetics of the Internet and expressive gesture. In our project, we propose to turn to a completely different aesthetics and language of forms, operating on much lower scales of contrast. We are interested in painting that is subtle, but not necessarily sentimental, using mostly figurative language, in which symbols, artifacts, interiors and atmosphere play an important role, often maintained in the tone of black romanticism or emoromanticism.

Instead of opening your eyes wide, we suggest squinting them, and instead of focusing your gaze on the Polish capital — to look around the region, specifically the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which, although geographically close to Bielsko-Biała, often remain outside our field of vision.

In the exhibition “Peripheral Vision” we will see painting operating with increasingly delicate, more personal and intimate means of expression. However, this does not mean withdrawal, on the contrary, as Piotr Sikora states in the text “Poor art. Strong politics”: “Behind this apparent silence there is a growing awareness of the self-worth, autonomy and rights of artistic persons. Art may be weak, but the region's artistic environment is gaining strength.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue containing its documentation and texts in Polish and English describing the artistic, social and political context of the presented painting. The authors of the texts are: Alek Hudzik, Karolina Voleská, Piotr Sikora, Dominika Moravčíková and the curatorial duo Tomek Pavlovski-Yarmolaev and Piotr Sikora.

“Peripheral vision” — a project by Piotr Sikora and Tomek Pawłowski-Yarmolajew — was selected as the most interesting in the competition organized by the Bielska BWA Gallery for the script of an exhibition presenting important phenomena in Polish contemporary painting.

13th Curatorial Exhibition Bielska Autumn 2026 — “Peripheral Vision”

Curators: Tomek Pawłowski-Yarmolajew and Piotr Sikora

Artists: Sarah Dubná (CZ), Andrej Dúbravský (SK), Cristina Ferreira-Szwartz (PL/PT), Joanna Woś (PL/AT), Julia Voronowicz (PL), Lera Dubitskaya (PL/BY), Lištica (CZ), Łukasz Stokłosa (PL), Michal Šumichrast (SK), Olga Krykun (CZ), Paula Gogol Paweł Olszewski (PL), Paweł Sobczak (PL), Sebastian Mikoś (PL), Štěpán Brož (CZ)

Exhibition architecture: Vojtěch Hlaváček

Graphics: Karolina Pietrzyk, Tobias Wenig

Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała, ul. 3 Maja 11 (upper room, lower room)

6 November 2026 — 10 January 2027

opening: Friday, 6 November 2026, 6 p.m.

The exhibition is included in the program: Bielsko-Biała Polish Capital of Culture 2026.

See the Bielska Autumn website, read about previous curatorial exhibitions >>