PATRYK STASIECZEK: for that gob casts the image

PATRYK STASIECZEK
for that gob casts the image

Curated by Alejandro A. Barbosa

Opening reception: Thurs, Apr 16, 6-8PM
Exhibition: Apr 17 – May 23, 2026

Event Programming:
Discotalk, Evann Siebens in conversation with Patryk Stasieczek, Friday, April 17, 6PM

Wil Aballe
1375 Railspur Alley, Vancouver, BC
Hours: Tues – Sat, 12-5 PM

For inquiries please contact Wil Aballe, wil@waapart.com

Patryk Stasieczek’s project configures the artist’s body as a physical photographic apparatus, one that renders their surroundings—professional and personal—onto hundreds of silver gelatin fibre-based paper negatives.

Utilizing their lips, tongue, airways and fluids, Stasieczek holds the referent, that which is depicted, literally in their skull—legible, once developed, mostly as abstraction. The contents of their mouth contaminate the chemistry of the black & white process, pushing against the prescribed becoming of silver halides into metallic silver, rehashing analog photography as a form of alchemy. These operations probe the aesthetic threshold between the interior and exterior of the body as a minor camera obscura which relays otherwise fleeting images that, incessantly, the mouth produces.

In this exhibition, Stasieczek proposes a solution beyond the figurative image to the unresolved ethics of queer agency in photography. The queer body is here brought into question as its openings are disciplined into an image-capable mechanism—not only is the queer body accounted for in front and behind the camera, but also as the promise of an agential photographic device.

Artist Bio:

Patryk Stasieczek is a Polish-Canadian 2SLGBTQIA+ visual artist whose practice explores photography as an embodied, interdisciplinary queering of image histories, actions, and materials. Their research is informed by an investment in pedagogy and curation that delves into the emergent conditions of photography and the physical relationships images create as forms of experiential knowledge. Patryk’s work as an artist has been featured in collaboration with the Pensacola Museum of Art (USA), Peripheral Review (CA), Anna Leonowens Gallery (CA), Centre Clark (CA), Libby Leshgold Gallery (CA), and the Magenta Foundation (CA). Stasieczek is Assistant Professor of Photography at NSCAD University.

Curator Bio:

Alejandro A. Barbosa is a 2SLGBTQIA+ latinx visual artist born in Argentina who lives and works on the unceded, traditional and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples—the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Alejandro’s work includes curatorial projects revolving around the status of the photographic image, biographically informed exhibitions, and the implications of photography in present-day culture. Barbosa is Non-Regular Faculty at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. They have curated projects in Argentina and Canada.

Discotalk Guest Bio:

Evann Siebens makes media, performance and photos with movement. Her lens-based practice negotiates the human body as an archival site and the politics of the female gaze. She danced professionally before attending film school at NYU, shooting dancers such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Bill T. Jones and Lucinda Childs in NYC as a dance cinematographer. Evann, in collaboration with Keith Doyle and 43 artists, released the book ‘Pedestrian Protest’ published by the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2025. Recent exhibitions include: Trieste Contemporanea (2025), Surrey Art Gallery (2025), Cloud Seven (2024), Vancouver Art Gallery Offsite (2021), MACBA (2021) and Kunstinstituut Melly (2020).

2026 Selected Exhibition