VISUAL ARTIST
Karolina Maria Dudek is a Polish visual artist living and working in London. She holds an MA in Photography from LCC and a BA in Photography from Camberwell College of Arts. Working primarily in photography, her practice extends to video, installation, and site-specific interventions, all unified by a deep exploration of mortality, memory, and the human condition.
The untimely passing of her mother during childhood instilled a lasting fascination with temporality and death, themes that permeate her artistic investigations. Dudek confronts the complex and multi-faceted dimensions of mortality – biological, philosophical, cultural, and psychological – through both direct and allegorical approaches.
In projects such as her year-long photographic documentation of a decaying crow and her use of her deceased mother's hair, Dudek examines the biological processes of decay and the metaphorical remnants left behind after death. These works reveal a persistent curiosity about the cyclical nature of life and the transformative power of loss. Staged images of abandoned female bodies, murdered and left outside, explore the social and ethical dimensions of death.
Dudek's project, The Future Tales, envisions a world dominated by AI, where technological advancements like cyborgs and quantum robotics are both commonplace and relics of the past. Influenced by works like Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Dudek explores transhumanist themes, the blurred boundaries between human and artificial life, and the potential consequences of a technologically advanced future. Working with both real photographs and AI-generated imagery, she creates speculative narratives that question humanity's place in a rapidly changing world. Individual images such as "Cyborg 0001," "The Eyes," and "The Fossil" engage with themes of memory, identity, sensory perception, and the enduring power of nature amidst technological disruption.
In counterpoint to these forward-looking narratives, Dudek's project, The Absence, delves into the fragmented and unreliable nature of personal memory. Drawing upon her own limited access to family history and the challenges of reconstructing the past through fragmented photographs, she explores the power of images to shape and distort our recollections. By altering existing family photographs and staging new images that evoke a sense of loss and ambiguity, Dudek creates a space where fact and fiction blur, and the very act of remembering becomes a creative act of invention.
Across these diverse projects, Dudek’s artistic practice reveals a commitment to exploring the complexities of the human experience. Whether confronting the raw realities of death and decay, imagining a future shaped by artificial intelligence, or reconstructing the elusive fragments of personal history, Dudek's intuitive and often ephemeral work provokes reflection on the fundamental questions that define our existence.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
07 Jul - 05 Oct 2025, The Absence, Les Recontres De La Photographie2024, Arles, France
28 Mar - 19 Apr 2025, Invading Space, Shau Fenster Gallery, Belin, Germany
26 Sep - 26 Oct 2024, (Im)Possible Worlds, Biennale De La Photographie, Mulhause, France
21 may - 27 May, Beyond the frame: Lacuna is to be filled, Four Corners Gallery, London
01 Feb - 06 Feb 2024 Imagine, The Future Tales, Rotterdam Photo Festival, Nederlander
06 Jun, 2023, Der-Greif, Munich
10 May - 16 May 2023, Liquida Photo Festival, Turin
22 Jun2017, Story of Don, Human Rights Festival, UCL, London
01- May 17May 2016, Pilorum, Kunstquartie Bethanien, Berlin
2013 Untitled, Photo Fusion Gallery, London
11 Jul 2012, The Grey Bricks, New Gallery, London College of Communications, London
2012 The grey Bricks, Arts Gallery, Zhejing
2012 Metroland, Goodenought Space, London
2012 A Few Elements of Everybody’s life, New Gallery at LCC, London
2010 Welcome in Dreamland ,Square Meter Gallery, London
2008 Degree exhibition Camberwell College of Arts, London Untitled,
2008 Dym Gallery, Krakow
2007 Metamorphozis, Central Space, London Untitled,
2006 Human, Photography Studio Panorama, Krakow
2005 Untitled, Southwark College Gallery, London
2003 Mask, Art Centre, Krakow
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2012, The Grey Bricks, Sunhoo Industrial Park, China
2011, Untitled, Bow Art Studios, London
2010, Hate, Silent Room Gallery, London
2009, The Great Harmony - Diversion, Bunhouse Gallery, London
2009, The Dead Crow: Months of Evidence, Art’s Bar, London
2009, Inside, Gallery in Theatre Nowy, Krakow
AWARDS
2012 UAL, finalist of Sproxton Award for Photography, Lonon
RESIDENCES
2012 Creative in Residency, China
PUBLICATIONS
2016 Pilorum
2011 The Dead Crow
CONTACT