Tomasz Mróz, Burrow

September 20, 2025

Opening: September 19, 2025, at 6 p.m.
September 20 – October 31, 2025
free entry

curator: Katarzyna Krysiak

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Tomasz Mróz is an artist who has consistently explored the boundaries of sculpture, installation, and performance since the beginning of his career. He continually confronts the concepts of matter, form, and memory. His work arises from a desire for subversion – challenging existing cultural codes and reshaping them into ambiguous, often grotesque forms where irony and melancholy coexist.

For years, Mróz has been developing a unique and consistent visual language. His works intertwine DIY aesthetics with references to popular culture and high art, creating an effect that is both disturbing and captivating. His sculptures, traditionally crafted from clay and eventually cast in materials like resin or silicone, straddle the line between caricature and anthropological exploration. They tell a story about ourselves – about how we shape our identities, influence others, and interact with the world around us.

The exhibition at the Foksal Gallery builds upon the themes introduced in the Burrow project, which took place in 2024 in the park in front of the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art and the vast thickets along the Vistula River in Warsaw’s Sadyba district. This project marked a significant turning point in Mróz’s artistic practice. The artist designed sculptures and objects with small animals and insects in mind, creating homes for insects, shelters, and pantries for field mice. Mróz had been contemplating an exhibition for animals for over a decade. He believes that this endeavor is only the beginning of his collaboration with non-human entities. Through his work, he has created a space for coexistence that seems to transcend the linear narrative of history, functioning instead as an intuitive response to contemporary ecological, social, and existential tensions.

The current installation at the Foksal Gallery is created in a similar spirit, balancing between revelation and dream, between parable and prophetic vision. At the center of the exhibition stands a wolf, frozen in a posture that is neither entirely human nor animal, caught in a state of both movement and resignation. The body is motionless, showing no signs of struggle. Its head is bowed, and its paw is wrapped in a leaf bandage. The wolf’s gaze is vacant, fixed somewhere beyond sight – perhaps on the image of a burning bush. A monologue emerges from a timeless depth. It accuses, yet does not shout; it speaks, but does not lecture. It is a voice that lost hope long ago, yet has not fallen silent.

About the artist:
Tomasz Mróz, born in 1979 in Opole, is a visual artist who lives and works in Warsaw. He is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań and a co-founder of the Penerstwo art group. Mróz creates multi-element installations that combine silicone sculptures, video projections, and sound elements. From the beginning of his career, he has developed a distinct style and perspective that diverge from intellectual trends. His work constructs a grotesque world that evokes dark fairy tales for adults, often blending sadness with black humor. The characters in his “bestiary”– deformed individuals, oversized animals, and mutated victims of civilization and pop culture – narrate stories of fears, desires, seductive ideologies, and artistic myths.
Mróz collaborates with the Monopol Gallery in Warsaw and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions. His work has been showcased at various venues, including the Foksal Gallery, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, and CSW Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw, the Gdańsk City Gallery, Piktogram Gallery in Warsaw, Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast, Gare Saint Sauveur in Lille, Temporary Gallery in Cologne, and Platan Gallery in Budapest.