Marko Obradović

The exhibition The Gaze. Beyond. will take place during Warsaw Gallery Weekend+ 2025 in the WGW+ section, presenting works by Marko Obradović, Patryk Staruch, Łukasz Stokłosa.
Coming from Wrocław, Krupa Gallery will be displayed at Studio8, ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 79/111, 00-079, Warszawa, from 19th to 28th of September.

Opening hours:11:00-19:00
Curator:Natalia Barczyńska

The exhibition explores the role and subjectivity of the gaze, themes of alienation, the relationship between observer and observed, and the influence of pop culture on collective consciousness. It is a narrative without a clear beginning or end, leaving the viewer suspended between what is real and what is merely perceived. It presents a landscape shaped by fleeting impressions and emotional afterimages, where what is observed constantly slips away, leaving only traces, projections.

The works of the three artists – Marko Obradović, Patryk Staruch, and Łukasz Stokłosa – explore the role and subjectivity of the gaze, themes of alienation, the role of the observer and the observed, and the influence of pop culture on collective consciousness. It is a narrative without a clear beginning or end, leaving the viewer suspended between what is real and what is merely seen. It is a landscape shaped by fleeting impressions and emotional afterimages, where what is observed is always slipping away, and what remains is only a trace, a projection.

The works of Obradović, Staruch, and Stokłosa navigate these in-between worlds with distinct yet resonant approaches. Obradović’s practice, infused with themes of abjection, transhumanism, and esotericism, creates speculative narratives that examine the ephemeral nature of identity and spirituality. His pieces suggest feelings of melancholy and claustrophobia, hinting at spaces both intimate and inaccessible, offering the viewer a glimpse into realities that are deliberately obscured. Patryk Staruch delves into the psychoanalytical undercurrents of cinema. Reimagining memories and dreams through cinematic language, his paintings question the power dynamics of the gaze and the fragile construction of self-image. Staruch’s canvases operate as disconnected yet strangely coherent frames of a never-made film, populated by dreamers, watchers, and the dreamt. Łukasz Stokłosa’s work reflects on the aestheticized ghosts of late capitalist fantasy. His fragmentary, glitch-like images evoke the faded opulence of the 1990s, exploring how collective desires, visual culture, and memory shape — and ultimately haunt — our perception of self and other. His figures hover between presence and absence, between acting and simply existing, becoming mirrors of a world both hyperreal and spectral.

The exhibition loosely resonates with the psychological atmosphere of David Lynch’s Lost Highway, as well as the existential rebellion of the French New Wave. It examines alienation as a social reaction to an unstable reality, using dichotomies — life and death, reality and illusion, consciousness and unconsciousness — to unsettle our certainties. Rather than offering a linear narrative or a closed interpretation, exhibition invites viewers into a liminal zone: a space where reality is perpetually questioned, where memory merges with projection, and where the self becomes as fleeting and unfixed as the images that pass before our eyes and subconscious.

Marko Obradović, Keyhole 5, 2025, oil on wood panel, 40 x 16 x 2.5 cm

Marko Obradović (1998) is a visual artist from Belgrade, Serbia. His practice includes painting, printmaking, installation, and video, with a focus on the ephemeral nature of identity, memory, and spirituality. Obradović draws inspiration from collective testimonies, shared cultural imagery, and cross-cultural symbolism, weaving together narratives that reflect personal and societal belief systems. His works often feature talismans, trinkets, and spiritually resonant objects, positioned within ambiguous, dreamlike settings. These compositions evoke raw, muddy, and sometimes ominous atmospheres that transcend the boundary between the human and a-human, suggesting an undercurrent of transformation or esoteric inquiry.

Obradović is interested in how objects and imagery carry spiritual weight and mythological histories, prompting introspection in the viewer. His practice invites a re-examination of the symbolic systems we inhabit, challenging notions of the self within community and ritual. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade and has exhibited both locally and internationally in solo and group shows.