The Endless River: Bartek Świątecki’s Olsztyn Current

As seasons turn in both hemispheres, one element binds them: water. Rivers, streams, and creeks carry our shared memory of motion—flowing, churning, glinting—and, as Whitman urged, “Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!” In that spirit, Bartek Świątecki’s abstract color compositions read like water finding its course: geometry loosens into current, planes slip into eddies, edges catch light and blink it back to you.

Bartek Świątecki. The Endless River / Olsztyn / Poland / 2025. (photo © Arek Stankiewicz)

Świątecki, working from Olsztyn, Poland, brings this language to walls most often, but just as readily to a canvas planted in a cow field when the site calls for it. His newest piece, finished in September and titled “The Endless River,” extends that vocabulary across a hometown façade—color moving like a surface of water through the city.

Bartek Świątecki. The Endless River / Olsztyn / Poland / 2025. (photo © Arek Stankiewicz)

“I managed to finish a new wall in my hometown Olsztyn. I named it The Endless River / Olsztyn / Poland / 2025,” he says. The result is a clear invitation: stand at the bank, watch the composition flow, and let the city meet the river it suggests. And to end our swim, contemplate the rolling, gentle undulations of Philip Glass performing his “Opening.”

Bartek Świątecki. The Endless River / Olsztyn / Poland / 2025. (photo © Arek Stankiewicz)
Bartek Świątecki. The Endless River / Olsztyn / Poland / 2025. (photo © Arek Stankiewicz)
Bartek Świątecki. The Endless River / Olsztyn / Poland / 2025. (photo © Arek Stankiewicz)
Bartek Świątecki. The Endless River / Olsztyn / Poland / 2025. (photo © Arek Stankiewicz)