CLOSER Exhibition of photographs by Tomasz Gudzowaty

Tomasz Gudzowaty made his debut in the mid-1990s, but his name hit the headlines in 1999 thanks to his first prize in the “Nature” category at World Press Photo. Before him, only a handful of Poles had reached for honors in the most important international press photography competition. The memorable photo, depicting two cheetah cubs just before killing their first prey, was highly praised both as a nature documentary and as the work of an artist with a recognizable personal style, finding its way not only into the pages of prestigious publications like Cartier Art Magazine, but even into encyclopedias, school textbooks and on postage stamps. Gudzowaty later made several more trips to sub-Saharan Africa, adding hundreds of photos of elephants, lions, cheetahs, wildebeest antelope, zebras and other animals to his body of work, as well as more awards. In 2008 he traveled to Antarctica, bringing back from there unique photos of emperor penguins living in a remote colony in the Weddell Sea. He returned to the southern hemisphere a few years later, in 2014, this time photographing the rich fauna of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. Gudzowaty’s nature photography, while remaining documentary in nature and faithful to the tradition of classic photojournalism, is distinguished by its expressive, sophisticated art form, which is particularly evident in his images of nature’s magnificent spectacles, such as the annual wildebeest migration or the breeding season in penguin colonies numbering in the thousands. Being an equally attentive observer of large-scale events and the smallest details, Tomasz Gudzowaty puts the viewer eye to eye with nature, showing its beauty. www.gudzowaty.com

Source: www.culture.pl, www.pgs.pl