Karol Kalinowski
- nickname KRL
- born 1982
- born in Suwałki
- he lives and creates his works in Olsztyn
- he specializes in comics and illustrations
“If I did not create comics, I would be a gold digger. In Poland. It boils down to the same thing. You have to work hard in both jobs, you won’t make a fortune, but you will have a lot to talk about”.
He studied at the Faculty of Art of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn. In 2006, he graduated from graphic design, supervised by dr hab. Piotr Obarek. He has taken part in individual and group exhibitions in Poland (including in Warsaw and Olsztyn) as well as in Russia, Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic or Portugal.
The most important publications: “Liga Obrońców Planety Ziemia. Mroczna Wizja”, Egmont, 2004; “Liga Obrońców Planety Ziemia. Atak Totalny”, Egmont, 2005; “Yoel 1. Święty Smok i Jerzy”, Taurus Media, 2007; “Łauma”, Kultura Gniewu, 2009; “Kościsko”, Kultura Gniewu, 2016; “Furkot”, Sheptooha, 2018; ‘’Turbolechici”, Sheptooha, 2018.
The most important awards and distinctions: award of the Polish Comics Association in the Best Polish Comics category, Warsaw, 2009; the Best Polish Comics Album, International Festival for Comics and Games in Łódź, 2010; “Nagroda im. Ferdynanda Wspaniałego” for the Best Polish Book for Children, Krakow, 2016.
Karol Kalinowski is famous for his characteristic contrasting style of drawing. He combines grotesque, ostensibly simplified and infantile strokes with precise shading and extensive chiaroscuro. He puts together economical panel elements in the cartoons style, devoid of extensive detail, with carefully hatched fragments.
He uses soft transitions from a part of a panel full of dense lines through increasingly looser strokes up to an entirely empty white area. For Kalinowski, white is something more than simply the absence of black: it functions as an autonomous colour. Fragments of his drawings devoid of any strokes are equally expressive as those filled with black.
White elements with no borders are often contrasted with precise, thin, and dense strokes. The artist sometimes resigns from contours of characters; other times, to the contrary, he uses a very strong and grotesque contour. Kalinowski chooses classic means of expression and, at the same time, he makes use of the possibilities of the comics to the maximum extent, e.g. he intentionally divides an image into three panels, and the white gutters between them sometimes occur to be an actual border, and sometimes an illusory one, which is partially covered by a character emerging from the panel.
The visual layer of his comics includes many references to pop culture (characters such as Dracula or Lord Vader from the “Star Wars”), films (scenes from “The Shining” by Stanley Kubrick), or paintings (e.g. “The Luncheon on the Grass” by Éduoard Manet or “Bedroom in Arles” by Vincent van Gogh).
Karol Kalinowski Gallery
More information about the artist: facebook.com/kaerel.studio
[shared_files file_id=5004]
[shared_files file_id=4722]
[shared_files file_id=4723]
[shared_files file_id=4724]
[shared_files file_id=4725]
[shared_files file_id=4726]
[shared_files file_id=4727]
[shared_files file_id=4728]
[shared_files file_id=4729]
[shared_files file_id=4730]
[shared_files file_id=4731]
To download eBooks from other artists, visit their artist portfolio pages.
At the bottom of each page you will find links to download eBooks and all {slow} magazines illustrated with the works of the best Polish illustrators.
 as well as in Russia, Belgium...){kind=link}