President and Board of the International Print Triennial Society in Krakow together with the Artist
cordially invite you to the opening of the exhibition
Orbits and Forms. Family Graphic Constellations | Celina Styrylska, Joanna Lola Styrylska
Opening: September 2, 2025, at 6:00 PM
Exhibition open: September 2–10, 2025
Gallery Centrum, Rynek Główny 29, 2nd floor
MCSG opening hours:
Mon, Tue 10:00–2:30 PM | Wed 10:00–2:00 PM | Thu, Fri 10:00–3:00 PM
Exhibition description
The exhibition “Orbits and Forms. Family Graphic Constellations” brings together two artists – Celina Styrylska and Joanna Lola Styrylska – who, despite belonging to different generations, share a common visual language: rooted in disciplined form, a refined sense of color, and an intuitive, deeply personal approach to nature.
The show creates a space for dialogue, resonating with echoes of modernism, the geometry of the 1960s, as well as contemporary expression and the conscious embrace of chance. Alongside the structured, precisely crafted woodcuts of Celina Styrylska – including her renowned Planets cycle – the exhibition features monotypes by Joanna Lola Styrylska, offering a contemporary interpretation of this legacy.
The younger artist’s works are not a mere repetition of her aunt’s aesthetics, but rather a creative transformation, filtering geometry through her own artistic sensibility and experience. The titular “orbits” refer not only to Celina’s planetary inspirations but also to family trajectories – paths that, while seemingly distant, revolve around shared values: harmony, light, composition, and movement. The “forms” become a language of understanding – graphic signs of both memory and individuality, embedded in structures that connect rather than divide.
The exhibition also explores the notion of inheritance – not only genetic, but above all creative. It is a story of how images transcend time, gaining new contexts while retaining their original power. It is also an attempt to honor the legacy of Celina Styrylska – an artist and educator whose work deserves rediscovery and recognition within the history of Polish printmaking.
“Orbits and Forms” is not just an exhibition – it is a story showing that art can be inherited like memory – through the eye, gesture, color, and rhythm.
Celina Styrylska-Taranczewska (1923–2010)
In 1947, she completed her studies under Professor Eugeniusz Eibisch at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. From 1953 she was affiliated with her alma mater, initially teaching lettering at the Katowice branch. From the 1960s, she ran a course in three-dimensional and planar design, later renamed Knowledge of Visual Structures and Actions, which she independently developed into a new discipline – a subject still taught today under the title Structures of the Artwork.
Her extensive teaching career went hand in hand with her artistic practice in painting, printmaking, and design.
She was a member of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers (ZPAP), which awarded her a bronze medal in 1962. Since 1979 she was affiliated with the international association Xylon.
Her work bears the hallmarks of art from the late 1950s and 1960s: decorative geometrization and rhythm, blending abstraction with figuration, and bold use of contrasting colors. Much of her output may be described as “geometric figuration.”
In the 1960s, she began a series of colorful woodcuts titled after planets of the Solar System. These ascetic, subtly decorative compositions echoed op-art. In the early 1960s, she was commissioned to design a monumental mosaic for the façade of the “Biprostal” office building in Krakow. This modernist work still adorns the building today, admired for its scale, precision, and artistic ambition.
Joanna Lola Styrylska (#styrylska_art)
Born in Katowice in 1980, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where in 2006 she graduated with distinction from the Faculty of Graphic Arts (Lithography Studio under Prof. Roman Żygulski). In 2008, she also completed studies at the Faculty of Painting with a specialization in Art Pedagogy.
She is a recipient of scholarships from the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art as well as the Mayor of Krakow. She works in easel painting, illustration, and graphic design. Twice awarded the Grand Prix at the BWA Art Salon in Tarnów (2009, 2011), her works are held in private collections in Poland and abroad.
Living and working in Krakow, she combines classical and digital techniques to create works characterized by strong formal structure and emotional intensity. Her approach is inspired by the Kapist tradition of painting, rooted in the observation of color and its autonomy.
She is particularly fond of collage, which she employs both visually and conceptually. Her works abound with rhythm, contrast, multiplication, and associative layers. Literature – especially the writings of Virginia Woolf, women’s poetry, and Japanese haiku – remains a major source of inspiration. For her, the word – subtle, concise, and suggestive – often becomes a parallel language to the visual.
Her artistic output can be read as visual diaries – records of inner experience, reflections on human relations, and attempts to create new meanings from color, line, and texture. She has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions.
More at: www.styrylska.com
