Art from the Street

Exhibition Review

Linocut is a relief printing technique in which ink applied to the raised elements of a matrix—the design carved into linoleum—transfers the final image onto paper, allowing for multiple copies of the original work. Linocut is also the medium closest to Arkadiusz Burda, a self-taught artist “from Padwa” in Zamość. During the summer season, he can often be found outside the Padwa restaurant at the Zamość market, surrounded by his works.

The exhibition features twelve large-format linocuts (approximately 70 × 55 cm) and several smaller pieces, including a set of ex libris—personalized illustrations placed inside a book cover to indicate its owner. Although Burda also creates color linocuts, this exhibition presents only two-tone works, allowing viewers to fully focus on the intricate and rich compositions within each piece.

Burda seems to open a window into the deeply personal aspects of his art. As a self-taught artist, his developed style presents a rich inner world, often hidden within the mundane details of everyday life. This combination of simplicity and depth, the ordinary and the metaphorical, allows the hero of his works to be either an angel floating over Zamość or a drunk man on a bench in the market. Among the array of depicted figures, we see painters, circus performers, and musicians, but also a hanged man or a person in a wheelchair. A human-snail appears to crawl out of a washable shell amidst clouds of narcotic smoke, while nearby a mysterious two-faced figure emerges against the city skyline. In this distinctive way, reality intertwines with dreamlike visions, and everyday life merges with a grotesque, distorted imagination.