Born in Kraków, Jerzy Nowosielski (1923-2011) was a painter, illustrator, philosopher and Orthodox theologian, and considered by many to be one of the greatest contemporary iconographers. The National Museum in Kraków holds an excellent collection of his works, selections from which can be seen in the permanent displays of the Bishop Erazm Ciołek Palace, and the 20th & 21st Century Polish Art Gallery. This exhibit, prepared in honour of the centenary of his birth, presents three strands in his work: 'landscape,' 'body' and 'abstraction.' Nowosielski's landscapes bring to mind film shots, recorded from various perspectives - sometimes straight on, sometimes from directly above - and their composition is largely based on the juxtaposition of flat and geometric forms.

The second strand is the body, which is not an object of aesthetic contemplation here, but becomes an almost geometric form, deprived of its corporeality; it is simplified, rhythmic and anonymous. The artist, deeply immersed in spirituality, strove to show a sacred body, abstracted from earthly reality.

The third strand of the exhibition - abstraction - in the work of this painter refers primarily to the highest being, to transcendence, the emanation of which is light, also the light of knowledge and enlightenment.