Drawing on dreams and memories imbued with an architectural sense of depth and balance, Rafał Topolewski’s work captures the liminal space between waking and sleeping. Barbed botanical subjects creep across the canvas, clock faces dissolve into landscapes, and vacant, glassy-eyed faces evoke the disjointed logic of the dream, balancing abstraction with a deft figurative approach. This fusion of fragmented objects with a softly muted palette and hazy, stippled brushstrokes creates the uncanny atmosphere unique to Topolewski’s work.
Topolewski originally trained in architecture before moving to the UK to study Fine Art at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and the Manchester Metropolitan University. It was here that he developed his distinctive approach to working in oils with a dry brush, evoking the appearance of a grainy photograph. The photographic allusion of his work continues into Topolewski’s use of a personal archive of photographs in addition to digital and print research from which he sources his subject matter.
These references are digitally spliced, overlaid, and manipulated collages that form the foundation of each painting. The process of painting itself takes an autonomous journey as the artist follows the idiosyncrasies and accidents of the medium to discover unexpected conclusions in the final work.
The subjects of Topolewski’s paintings share an earthy, ochre-hued tone – capturing the strangeness of the crepuscular hours between day and night. This curious environment draws an allusion between the subjects of the paintings and Topolewski’s interest in states outside of sleep and wakefulness, where memories, dreams, and reality blur together in the fragmentary language of his work. In this suggestible state, the artist’s work invites viewers to immerse themselves in an uncanny space where logic and reason give way to intuition and emotion. The frequent inclusion of the artist’s own portrait in his work suggests Topolewski’s interest in interrogating his own psyche as he picks at the seams of our collective consciousness.
Rafał Topolewski was born in Grudziadz (PL) in 1983. He studied architecture at the Wroclaw University of Technology (PL), before receiving a BA in Fine Art from Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) in 2012. He went on to study Fine Art at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (UK), graduating with a Postgraduate Diploma in 2016.
Topolewski’s recent solo and group exhibitions include Smoulder, GRIMM, New York, NY (US); Fragment II, Commune Gallery, Vienna (AT); A Room Hung With Thoughts: British Painting Now, curated by Tom Morton, Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX (US) in 2025; Slumber, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL) in 2024; Interludes, Alice Amati, London (UK) in 2023; The Belly and the Guts, Alice Amati, London (UK) in 2023; In Three Acts, Huxley-Parlour, London (UK) in 2023; Becoming a Creature, Tabula Rasa Gallery, London (UK) in 2023; Castelet, Simo Bacar, Lisbon (PT) in 2022; Corpo e Mente, curated by Lawrence Van Hagen, Palazzo Barbaro, Venice (IT) in 2022; If not, Winter, Simo Bacar, Lisbon (PT) in 2022.
His work is part of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (IT); Longlati Collection (CN) and Simian Foundation (CN), among many private collections.
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Rafał Topolewski
Smoulder September 5 - November 1, 2025 GRIMM 54 White St, New York, NY (US) -
A Room Hung With Thoughts: British Painting Now
Curated by Tom Morton February 15 - May 11, 2025 Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX (US) -
Rafał Topolewski
Slumber March 7 - April 6, 2024 GRIMM Keizersgracht 241, Amsterdam (NL)
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Food for thought at Green Family Art Foundation: What makes British art ‘British’?
A Room Hung With Thoughts: British Painting Now” features 40 works by 40 artists.Benjamin Lima, The Dallas Morning News, March 4, 2025 -
In the Studio with Rafał Topolewski
Maddalena Bonato, Emergent Magazine, April 10, 2024
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"Untitled (Mariana)" (2025) by Rafał Topolewski acquired by Longlati Foundation, Shanghai
October 15, 2025GRIMM is pleased to announce the recent acquisition of Rafał Topolewski's Untitled (Mariana) (2025) by the Longlati Foundation, Shanghai (CN). This work was first presented...Read more -
The Green Family Art Foundation presents "A Room Hung With Thoughts: British Painting Now" featuring several GRIMM artists
Curated by Tom Morton January 15, 2025The Green Family Art Foundation is presenting A Room Hung With Thoughts: British Painting Now , curated by Tom Morton, opening on February 15. The...Read more -
"untitled" (2024) by Rafał Topolewski aquired by Simian Foundation, Shanghai
November 6, 2024Drawing on dreams and memories imbued with an architectural sense of depth and balance, Rafał Topolewski’s work captures the liminal space between waking and sleeping....Read more -
Rafał Topolewski joins GRIMM
March 21, 2024GRIMM is delighted to announce the international representation of Polish artist Rafał Topolewski in collaboration with Alice Amati in London (UK). Drawing on dreams and...Read more