Karolina Orzełek: From Nowhere, Forever Ago

Galerie Sabine Bayasli, Paris, FR

By Maxime Foucquet

May 30, 2024

Karolina Orzełek’s third solo exhibition at Galerie Sabine Bayasli in Paris, France, runs until June 9. The exhibition titled “From Nowhere, Forever Ago” showcases a mesmerizing interplay of utopia and nostalgia, captured through Orzełek’s distinctively and vibrantly colored surreal tableaus. These scenes, too exquisite to be real, dramatize the mundane and infuse a sense of exotic vibrancy and vibrato into the every day—a must-visit show by an artist to follow closely.

The exhibition showcases Orzełek’s remarkable use of oil on wood, a technique that enriches her canvases with a unique texture and patina. The grain of the wood not only cracks open the fabric of the depicted scenes but also breathes life into them, enhancing the overall impact of artifice and playfulness. Orzełek’s color palette ranges from acid pinks to electric greens, placing her work amid strange climatic phenomena that recall the fantastical elements of science fiction. These colors symbolize a bubbling excitement, with elements such as disco balls, balloons, and overturned scooters painting a picture of a world both before and after a grand celebration. The depicted scenes are devoid of human presence, capturing instead the ephemeral joy and nostalgia of moments lost to time.

Karolina Orzełek’s work is characterized by an enchanting confusion of times and realities, as the title suggests. Her paintings dwell in a realm that is detached from any specific temporality, evoking the faded elegance of vintage postcards intertwined with the vivid allure of cinematic imagery. The artist skillfully manipulates color saturation, transforming ordinary scenes into extraordinary visions that never existed in nature. These artworks are a study of the sublimation of reality through the power of imagination, marked by thermodynamic energy and solarized effects—insolation, reverberation, and a hallucinatory vividness that captivates and expands the viewer’s perception.

For more information, please consult Galerie Sabine Bayasli’s website here.