Paulina Semkowicz Paints the Afterlife of a Painted-Over Wall at Galeria S35, Łódź

Key facts

• Paulina Semkowicz presented "Residency: The Wall" at Galeria S35 in Łódź from 25 July to 22 September 2026.
• The exhibition was curated by Kuba Szkudlarek and funded by the City of Łódź through the Łódź pełna kultury programme.
• The work is a single site-specific painting installation in acrylic dispersion and pigment applied directly to the gallery wall.
• Semkowicz was born in Kraków in 1980, studied painting and scenography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, worked as a scenic painter, and has been a member of the Künstlerhaus Wien since 2022.
• The wall had previously been stripped of plaster and paint layers, revealing original painted decoration that served as an informal visual signature for a year and a half before being painted over for technical reasons.
• Curator Kuba Szkudlarek framed the wall's history through the concept of "pentimento" and Aby Warburg's notion of "Nachleben" (afterlife).
• Semkowicz's intervention does not reconstruct the lost ornament but creates another incarnation of the image from documentation, interior history and her own painterly language.
• Galeria S35 is a private contemporary art gallery at Henryka Sienkiewicza 35/3a in Łódź, running exhibitions since 2023.