Maciej Szelmowski is a person of many talents and an artist expressing himself in many artistic
disciplines. Set design, poster, printmaking, painting, photography. His many achievements, exhibitions
and prizes could be shared among several other artists. Still, apart from that he has also been a
publisher; and his enormous body of work includes television productions, music videos, albums and
books he authored, even wall painting. Still, he is most of all a citizen of Sopot, who anchored his artistic
boat at this seaside resort, in Plac Rybaków [Fishermen’s Square], 40 years ago, and he has lived here
since then. He is, in fact, the last fisherman in that square, but today he catches most beautiful moments
and places in the city mainly with his camera. For it is Sopot that has remained his continuous inspiration
and a creative challenge as well (...).

He remains a contradicting artist, though composed and slightly withdrawn; an artist very much
from Sopot, still a universal one also (which has been proved by numerous international awards his
posters and photos have won so far); a contemporary artist, still one whose roots are buried deep in the
resort’s history and heritage; modest and local, but versatile and renown internationally. An artist whose
work has never functioned within any artistic trends; thus, it has remained trendy all along; and finally – a
fragile and sensitive person (as any true artist is), yet conscious of his work’s value.
He remains a contradicting artist, though composed and slightly withdrawn; an artist very much
from Sopot, still a universal one also (which has been proved by numerous international awards his
posters and photos have won so far); a contemporary artist, still one whose roots are buried deep in the
resort’s history and heritage; modest and local, but versatile and renown internationally. An artist whose
work has never functioned within any artistic trends; thus, it has remained trendy all along; and finally – a
fragile and sensitive person (as any true artist is), yet conscious of his work’s value.
He has devoted the last few years mainly to photography, monochromatic as well as in colour,
which earned him well-deserved international recognition manifested by his receiving three times the
International Photography Award, also known as the photographic Oscar, as well as six Spider Awards in
a row (latest of which was bestowed on him in December 2021) he got during a prestigious international
photographic competition organized each year in Beverly Hills, where tens of thousands of photographs
are submitted yearly from all around the world.

However, the most significant criteria to be used while assessing the artwork of Maciej
Szemelewski are not the awards and laurels. In my view, what remains most valuable is his continuous
effort to preserve what is most precious in the world around us, but has nowadays been lost, ever less
remembered, and thus, most difficult to retain.
Places and moments that are preserved for us by the artist every day – with a camera, a brush, a
pencil – have received a new dimension thanks to him, they are revived with each exhibition and live
moments of their “afterlife”. These works meeting new viewers continue to write the short history of
infinity...