Agata Ruman – Shadowless

Painting allusions to images from the past, recorded in photographs, films and stories.

An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Agata Ruman, all inspired by the long-gone world before the Second World War, whose only remains can now be found in old photographs and stories. Brightly coloured  and synthetic, her paintings depict scenes from everyday life.

Agata Ruman:
My paintings and drawings are inspired by my deep passion for the past. A past preserved in black and white photographs and films and recounted in the stories of people who remember the reality before 1939. I am fascinated by shots of streets with passers-by and scenes from everyday life; with photographs of familiar places which have often changed beyond recognition.
My work adverts to the past which has survived today only in the form of photographic records, film footage or verbal accounts. I call the series presented at the exhibition Shadowless, by which I mean that things devoid of their shadows don't exist.

Agata Ruman – was born in 1985 in Pszczyna. She is a graduate of the National Secondary School of Fine Arts in Bielsko-Biała. She studied Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where she obtained a degree in painting under Professor Jan Pręgowski in 2010; as well as conservation and restoration of artworks at the same university; degree under Professor Iwona Langowska and Maria Rudy, MA (2010). She also completed a postgraduate course in graphic design at the Faculty of Graphic Arts and Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź (2017). She has worked as a teacher at the Art School in Bielsko-Biała since 2015.


Agata Ruman has held several solo exhibitions, most recently: Shades of a Woman at Klub Papaya in Czechowice-Dziedzice (2011); Flirting with the Past in Pszczyna (2012); Painting at the Henryk Jan Dominiak Museum of Professional Miniature Art in Tychy (2014) and the MDK Gallery in Czechowice-Dziedzice; Flirting with the Past at the Gallery of the University of Bielsko-Biała. She has also participated in a number of group exhibitions. In 2018, she presented her work in the Art Fresh Festival in Warsaw and participated in 4th Festival of Visual Arts in Bielsko-Biała.

The artist’s paintings can be found in numerous collections in Poland, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden and other countries.

Vernissage at 5.30 pm on Monday, 4 March, 2019.