ASU to Showcase Polish Artist’s Portraits

SAN ANGELO, TX - Angelo State University will present a public exhibit of contemporary paintings by Polish artist Bartosz Beda, ASU's 2025 Edwards Trust Artist in Residence, beginning Tuesday, Sept. 2, in the Carr Education-Fine Arts (EFA) Building, 2602 Dena Drive.

Beda's exhibit of metaphorical portrait paintings, titled "Echoes Vitae," will be open for free public viewing in the EFA Building's Gallery 193 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays through Oct. 31.

ASU will also host also host Beda for a Gallery Talk lecture about his exhibit on Thursday, Sept. 18, from 3-5 p.m. in EFA Building Room 101. The Gallery Talk is also open and free to the public.

Born in Poland in 1984, Beda relocated to the United Kingdom in 2008 to study at the Manchester School of Art, earning a Master of Fine Art in 2012, and he was selected for the 2012 Catlin Art Guide as the most promising emerging artist in the UK. He was later awarded a scholarship to the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, Germany, a fellowship from Fondazione per l'Arte in Rome, and a residency fellowship at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Pennsylvania.

Beda's artworks are in public collections at the Reading Public Museum, Brownsville Museum, Siena Art Institute and Fondazione per l'Arte, as well as in private collections throughout Europe, the U.S., Asia and South Africa.

"As a child, I was once told that a person's moral conduct is like a white cloth: each wrongdoing leaves a stain, and with enough marks, purity becomes hard to reclaim," Beda said. "My portraits in this exhibition metaphorically represent that white cloth. Each face becomes a surface upon which the aftermath of life is marked. The traces of intention, error and consequence are embedded in layers of paint. The brush marks function as both a physical gesture and a record of judgment, capturing the obscurity of personal legacy and the unseen dimensions of character."

Examples of Beda's artwork are available at on his website at https://bartoszbeda.com/.

ASU's Henry Edwards Artist in Residence program is supported by the Edwards Family Trust that was established in 1992 by Joseph Henry Edwards and Winona Edwards of San Angelo. It provides funding for the ASU art program, including support for scholarships for outstanding visual art students, a lectureship in the visual and performing arts, and the artist residency program. 

The purpose of the residency is to bring to the university noted individuals in the visual arts to share their knowledge, expertise and creative research with students, faculty, staff and the greater San Angelo community. The residency is dedicated to improving the overall artistic environment at ASU and the programming within the Department of Visual and Performing Arts.