In Shelf With Jeans, Szostek reflects on identity and the archiving of everyday experiences. The piece consists of two pairs of worn-out jeans, a photograph of a hand with a seashell-adorned fingernail, and metal shelving forming a panel. The arrangement recalls pop-art compositions, such as Andy Warhol’s iconic depictions of Elvis Presley. However, instead of mass culture icons, the artist focuses on the personal and ephemeral.

Stripped of their function, the jeans become relics of the everyday, industrial waste, and a record of time passing. The dynamic composition creates a sense of movement—the jeans appear suspended in a transitional state, while the photograph of the hand, placed between them, looks as if it has been accidentally dropped. This feeling of impermanence is reinforced by the image itself: a hand with a seashell on its fingernail emerging against the backdrop of a horizon and restless waves, building a narrative about time, memory and the fragility of the body.

This theme is further developed through thermoplastic techniques with the image placed inside a glass cylinder creating an autonomous object that echoes the artist’s earlier works. The piece attempts to capture what inevitably fades—personal histories, material traces of presence that over time become either discarded waste or relics. The title Shelf With Jeans refers both to the physical storage of objects and the metaphorical act of selection—what is remembered and what is irretrievably lost.