Kacper Kowalski, Credo - at Poprzeczna Gallery in Miechow

Date of opening: 03.02.2024 (Saturday)  

Location: Poprzeczna Gallery , 3 Poprzeczna Street Miechow /. www.facebook.com/poprzeczna 

Artist: Kacper Kowalski , www.kacperkowalski.pl

Transverse Gallery will present a dozen works by Kacper Kowalski from various projects (Over, Arche, Event Horizon, Afterimages). 

Credo

In the twenty-odd years that have passed since my first flight, a lot has changed. I have started a family, my children have managed to go to school, and people in the air have been replaced by drones. The whole world is photographed and available on my phone. Every part of the map has been interpreted and replicated in thousands of ways.

And I'm still drawn to the air. I still wander in the sky. I'm more interested in what I feel when I look than what I see and know about the world. I look for the impression that remains in my imagination when I am no longer looking. This is my ritual. I enter a certain state of meditation - attentiveness maybe. And then I photograph.

I am an architect by training, and this profession has shaped my way of looking. I analyze the content of landscapes, and present the result in the form of abstract, harmonious photos. Sometimes they are like sketches that contain multi-layered information about the world, sometimes like maps from which one can read the traces of human activity imprinted in the structure of the Earth. More often, however, they depict an abstract world, detached from reality - though real. They reflect the emotions, impressions and reflections that are born during solitary flights.

I am constantly searching - for new insights into the place where I live, new phenomena that I have missed for so many years. It fascinates me to observe why, out of the boundless landscape at my disposal, my attention is drawn to this place and not another. Reflections raise further questions. They will never end.

Kacper Kowalski

Kacper Kowalski (1977) - has been observing and photographing landscapes from a bird's eye perspective for over 25 years. After studying architecture at the Gdansk University of Technology and working in the profession for four years, he devoted himself to flying and photography - his greatest passions. He has spent more than 5,000 hours in the air. As a paraglider and windmill pilot, Kacper took to the air with an engine strapped to his back to explore the world of forms, shapes and patterns during solo flights. Constantly grappling with the forces of nature: wind and air currents, photographing from 150 meters above the ground, he finds himself in an almost meditative state. Then the landscape reveals to him not only abstract forms, but seems to communicate with him in the language of symbols that appear in his photographs. For Kowalski, flight is not only a way to capture the world below, but becomes a spiritual journey, during which he discovers universal truths about the relationship between man and nature, the past and the present, as well as his own personal truth and the path to it. 

He has received numerous awards, including the World Press Photo award (three times), the Picture of the Year International POYi award (six times) and dozens of others. His first book, Side effects, was released in 2014 by Leica Gallery Warsaw, then self-published books OVER (2017), Arche (2021), and in 2022 a book was published Event Horizon published by the Dutch publishing house 1605 Collective. His work has been exhibited several hundred times in group and solo exhibitions around the world, and his books have won and been nominated for the most prestigious awards, including Les Prix du Livre at the Rencontres d'Arles.

He is represented by Panos Pictures, and galleries Bildhalle in Amsterdam and Zurich and Atlas Gallery in London, Arte Giani in Frankfurt am Main.