KAROLINA BURLIKOWSKA

Karolina Burlikowska works instinctively, following her curiosity into surreal places. Influenced by the every-day world around her—from the ad catalogues of her teenage years to food bubbling in the kitchen—Karolina’s work embraces moments of magic which often go unnoticed by others. Nature and its phenomena are a consistent source of inspiration, particularly reflective surfaces. The fresh raindrop on the window. The ripple on the lip of a lake. The icicle ready to fall. The interplay of light and surface, and the unexpected effects created by reflections, fascinate her.

Her creative process is spontaneous, awoken by a sudden visual interest or a thought that compels her to reach for her camera or phone – whatever is at hand. There’s a sense of urgency in her work, a desire to seize the idea and translate it into a tangible form before it fades. This urgency, or impatience, also translates into her mixed media approach, where she uses whatever materials or tools are nearby.

Karolina’s instinctive approach extends to her experimentation with digital and physical techniques. Always searching to uncover new possibilities, she uses digital manipulation to alter and enhance, but also enjoys working with prints—often scanning, printing, and rescanning until she finds something new. This process is not always linear. If she encounters a creative block, she may put the image aside and revisit it later with fresh eyes.

Karolina deeply enjoys working with other artists, approaching each collaboration as a unique opportunity for mutual exploration. These creative exchanges open up paths she might not have ventured down in her solo work, enriching her artistic practice with fresh perspectives and new ideas. For Karolina, her work is an ongoing journey, always evolving and twisting with new ideas or collaborations. This fluid approach means that her work doesn’t neatly fall into distinct “projects”, but rather exists as a continuous, interconnected body of work.

Words by Lizzie Challen Hubbard

in collaboration with Joanna Wierzbicka, courtesy of the artists.

Karolina Burlikowska (1992) is a Poland-born, London-based photographer specialising in still life. Karolina’s childhood spent surrounded by nature sparked a lifelong fascination with its magic, which continues to inspire her work today. During her years assisting in the London photography industry, Karolina developed her own distinctive approach to capturing the essence of everyday objects, foods, and phenomena. Karolina embraces curiosity, instinct and experimentation throughout her creative process. Exploring digital and analogue editing processes—from AI to physically printing images on unconventional surfaces—her work achieves unique representations of familiar, often unnoticed, objects and uncovers the magic hidden in plain sight.

Copyright © Karolina Burlikowska, all rights reserved

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