Karolina Żądło

Born in 1999, Karolina Żądło studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. Her figurative oil paintings examine femininity through the symbolic weight of objects — pearls worn as armour, flowers that carry danger, translucent fabrics layered over the body as protection and exposure simultaneously. Żądło builds up her canvases slowly, using transparent glazes that allow underlayers to remain visible and alter the reading of the surface. The tension in her work lies between fragility and resistance: things that appear delicate are recast as shields, and things that seem threatening are revealed as ordinary. One of the standout voices in the current generation of Polish painters.