Polana Institute

21/05/2026

🪸We are pleased to announce the representation of Joanna Fluder! ✨

Joanna Fluder (b. 1981) is a visual artist working across painting, sculpture, video, and ceramics. She graduated from the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where she completed her diploma in 2006 in the studio of Leszek Misiak.

Her practice explores the relationship between humans and nature, the social role of care, as well as neurodiversity, gender, and feminist concerns within the context of life in the post-Anthropocene. Fluder constructs a dreamlike visual language, drawing on surrealism and personal mythology.

For many years, she worked in a domestic setting, creating at the kitchen table while raising children. This experience has shaped the spontaneous and expressive character of her art, rooted in the rapid recording of dreams, memories, and everyday situations. For the artist, painting has become a form of reflection and resistance to social norms.

Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions, including “Slime” at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (2025) and “Observation Point” at the Gdańsk City Gallery (2011). She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, such as: “Rewilding: the Breath of Creeping Shadows” at BWA Warszawa (2025) and “Nightwatching” at Potencja Gallery in Kraków (2020).

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🌻 Joanna Fluder’s solo show ~ Bruise, Shine on My Skin ~ opens tomorrow, Friday, May 22, 2026, 6–9 pm at Polana Institute 🌻

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📸 Images 1–3, Portraits of Joanna Fluder, Photos: Bartosz Wajer 🌊

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19/05/2026

🥀 Julia Platt’s solo show at Polana Institute opens this September during Warsaw Gallery Weekend!

Her newest series of paintings explores the theme of vanitas, with the withering rose emerging as one of its central motifs—a symbol of sudden death, loss, and misfortune. Drawing from the tradition of classical still life painting, and inspired by art history as well as the works of Dutch masters, Platt reinterprets these visual languages through the inclusion of contemporary and deeply personal elements. Among them is a faience child’s shoe containing a portrait of a child—small ‘Julka,’ the artist herself.

Julia Platt was previously featured by Polana Institute at NADA New York twice, with the presentations “Weltschmerz” (2025) and “The Twins” (2024).

The artist is currently undertaking a three-month residency at Artists Unlimited in Bielefeld, Germany (May 15–August 15, 2026), where new works for the exhibition are being developed.

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🎨 Image 1: Julia Platt, I Never Liked Roses, 2026, oil on canvas, 90 x 110 cm
🎨 Image 2: Julia Platt, As If Alive, 2026, oil on canvas, 81 x 100 cm
🎨 Image 3: Julia Platt, The Thaw, 2026, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm

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15/05/2026

🌊 Opening next week: Joanna Fluder 🌊
~ Bruise, Shine on My Skin ~
🐚 Friday, May 22, 6–9 pm 🐚

On view till: June 20, 2026

The series of 54 gouaches is accompanied by works on canvas and sculptures of “Goddesses for Bruises,” as well as “Litany to the Bruises,” which functions like a mantra intended to hasten the healing process.

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🎨 Image 1: Joanna Fluder, Bruise in the Shape of a Cliff, 2025, gouache on paper, 27.9 x 35.6 cm
🎨 Image 2: Joanna Fluder, Bruise in the Shape of Giving Birth to Shared Thoughts, 2025, gouache on paper, 27.9 x 35.6 cm
🎨 Image 3: Joanna Fluder, Bruise in the Shape of Lifting the Lips to Eliminate a Sad and Tired Expression, 2026, gouache on paper, 27.9 x 35.6 cm
🎨 Image 4: Joanna Fluder, Bruise in the Shape of Head-First Dives at the Very Edge of the Sea, 2026, gouache on paper, 27.9 x 35.6 cm

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14/05/2026

Dziękujemy KK MAG💋💖💖

Otwarcie wystawy JJoanna Fluder ~ Siniaku, błyszcz na mej skórze ~ już 22 maja💋🤩😍

Odkryj subiektywny przewodnik po majowych wystawach w galeriach i instytucjach kultury. Artyści zapraszają do świata napięć i wątpliwości, zamiast gotowych odpowiedzi. Sprawdź, które ekspozycje war...

13/05/2026

Yesterday’s preview of the “House of Nisaba: New Stories of Painting” group exhibition curated by Hendrik Folkerts at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden.

The show “signals a return to figurative painting in contemporary art through the lens of allegory” and features 29 international artists, among whom 25 artists, including Mikołaj Sobczak, were commissioned to make a new painting especially for this occasion.

“House of Nisaba” is open from May 14 until August 30, 2026.

Tremendous congratulations to Hendrik Folkerts, all the presented artists, the whole team at Moderna Museet and everyone involved in the process of creating this exhibition👏

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Image 11: Mikołaj Sobczak, Mask of Nisaba, 2026

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10/05/2026

❗️Last chance to see Jacek Obraniak’s solo show at Polana Institute as it reaches its final week 🗣️📣

~ The Door is Closed, the Vent Window is Open ~
🚛 April 17 — May 16, 2026 🚛

🖋️Accompanying text: Paweł Sołtys
⚡️Electromechanical assistance: Janusz Hetman

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‼️The gallery is closed on Tuesday, May 12, 2026.
We invite you to join us for the last week of Jacek Obraniak’s exhibition from Wednesday, May 13, on.

Wed-Fri: 4–7 pm, Sat: 12–7 pm

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08/05/2026

Dziękujemy Label Magazine💖💋🤩!

Zapraszamy na wernisaż wystawy Joanny Fluder już 22 maja🤩😁🥰😍

Są tematy, o których najtrudniej mówi się wprost. Kiedy głos więźnie w gardle, do głosu dochodzi ciało, a konkretnie - skóra. To właśnie ona staje się płótnem dla najnowszej opowieści Joanny Fluder. Wystawa „Siniaku, błyszcz na mej skórze”, którą od 22 maja będzie można ogl...

08/05/2026

🌻Opening soon: Joanna Fluder🌻
~ Bruise, Shine on My Skin ~
💧Friday, May 22, 6–9 pm💧

On view till: June 20, 2026
Tue-Fri: 4–7 pm, Sat: 12–7 pm

Joanna Fluder’s solo show at Polana Institute is a strongly personal narrative about domestic violence drawing on artist’s own life experiences and told from the perspective of the skin—or rather, through the wide range of bruises appearing on the body. Fluder doesn’t romanticize violence; instead, she constructs a narrative that she herself can inhabit. The series of several dozen gouaches is accompanied by works on canvas and sculptures of “goddesses,” as well as “Litany to the Bruises,” which functions like a mantra intended to hasten the healing process.

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🎨 Joanna Fluder, Bruise in the Shape of a Declaration: I Will Weep All My Seeds over Your Dead Body, 2026, gouache on paper, 27.9 x 35.6 cm (details)

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05/05/2026

Only 2️⃣ weeks left until Jacek Obraniak’s solo show at Polana Institute comes to an end. Make sure you explore his reflection on city life and its inhabitants before it’s too late! 👀

~ The Door is Closed, the Vent Window is Open ~
🚘 April 17 — May 16, 2026 🚘
Tue-Fri: 4–7 pm, Sat: 12–7 pm

🖋️Accompanying text: Paweł Sołtys
⚡️Electromechanical assistance: Janusz Hetman

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02/05/2026

⚙️ Jacek Obraniak, An Attempt at Dialogue, 2026, steel wire, gourd, bulrush, pine needles, thread, rubber, linen, electric motors and actuators, analogue programming and drive system, 2x 45 x 45 x 45 cm 🗣️🗣️

⚡️Electromechanical assistance: Janusz Hetman

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🚖On view as part of Jacek Obraniak solo show at Polana Institute 🚖
~ The Door is Closed, the Vent Window is Open ~
🚦April 17 — May 16, 2026🚦

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“Sometimes we’re barely apparitions. As if the words had not yet hatched, the trails of vowels not yet blazed, the leaves of consonants not yet sprung; as if commas and periods had not yet flown in, nor throat-clearings, grimaces, whispers, and the rest of speech and script. Not just yet. We appear; dawns find us, and light bulbs too, and sometimes even eyes find us—more often than human these would be mouse’s, worm’s or reptile’s eyes. What does that say about us, what does it say about the world? Nothing, as words don’t exist yet, let alone—pff—writings.

Horrors are robust, shadows trail beyond the world, someone has drunk a warm beer. The abyss misses one s, for there are no letters yet and no one will notice; it becomes abys, and this abys drags the rest of the figures and surroundings into the sacred space. A space fit for Gilgamesh, and fit for Isa too, fit for their looking into each other’s eyes—though the eyes can be random and do not see who’s looking through them. The eyes do not know who’s looking through them.

And then you exit. And the language returns, or is begotten. And the writing returns, or is begotten. One can write this text. Men and women smoke ci******es. Something dawns on them. The backs are hunched. The shoulder blades rise, the collarbones sink. A gaze down, into the dust, the gaze of a streetlamp hit by a truck. One may feel like a Mandaean savior, like John the Baptist with his head on a platter. It is the gaze of that head.

The shafts of our boots go up to our knees. The knees yearn for prayers. The prayers are curt, as if barked out. The shafts are charred with dusk, shadows and heavy words. To you. Take a look. As we look for ourselves.”

Accompanying text: Paweł Sołtys

Translation: Michał Biela