Magdalena Kwapisz Grabowska

Gym or Sport

Human figures captured in motion, placed within derealized spaces of gymnasiums.
Movement frozen in the frame. A deliberate technique is the use of three colors—white, black, and red—representing the three elements of air, earth, and fire, deeply atavistic traits of human existence.
Perhaps more aptly, this references Plato’s philosophy, where bodily perfection in sport and spirituality form an integrated whole, bringing human existence closer to the absolute, to ideal harmony known as Areté—human excellence.
Gym derives from the Greek gymnasium, with its etymology tracing back to gymnastike, from gymno- meaning “naked, bare” (as ancient Greeks exercised without clothing) and astikos meaning “orderly, systematic.”

Curatorial Statement: The Phenomenon of Creation – Between Colour and Icon

The presented collection reveals a unique artistic phenomenon in which colour becomes not merely a means of expression, but a carrier of emotion, narrative, and symbolism. Its intensifications resemble musical harmonies—just as timbre shapes the emotional tone of a composition, so does colour build tension, rhythm, and drama within the image. The artist handles light and shadow with remarkable sensitivity, creating visual temperatures that draw the viewer into a world of synthesized, surreal reality.The forms depicted undergo geometrization, abstraction, and occasional distortion—yet they never lose their connection to nature. They are dynamic, chaotic, and yet full of internal logic. Ornamentation here is not superficial; it is a masterful play of detail that constructs the whole. Costumes, hairstyles, accessories, and embellishments become attributes of the figures, reinforcing their ideological message and symbolic resonance.Among the protagonists of this visual narrative, we encounter ballerinas, athletes, operatic divas, cultural icons such as Nina Simone and Frida Kahlo. Harlequins evoke Picasso’s legacy, while pastiches of the great masters—Velázquez, Vermeer, Monet, Goya, Fragonard, Rembrandt, Klimt, Schiele, Boznańska, and Lichtenstein—form a dialogue with art history, conducted with lightness and brilliance.The inspiration also extends to the world of fashion—from bridal divas to haute couture in the spirit of Coco Chanel. The images evoke film stars, pop culture icons, and figures of historical and scientific significance, such as Nicolaus Copernicus and Queen Elizabeth I. References to religious painting, Asian culture, the geisha aesthetic, the ethnic identity of Panamanian women, and fantastical or fairy-tale characters like Little Red Riding Hood and Pippi Longstocking enrich the narrative. Even cosmic journeys and space exploration find their place in this imaginative universe.Subtle nudes, full of sensuality and delicacy, complete this remarkably diverse yet stylistically coherent collection. Each work radiates a virtuosity that defies verbal definition—a phenomenon of creation that captivates, inspires, and leaves a lasting impression on the viewer’s imagination.

Construction and deconstruction

Kwapisz-Grabowska’s painting focuses on the construction and deconstruction of the human figure and consciousness. Bodies that are rendered in an almost topographic fashion are splayed out across the picture. Using a chalky, limited palette Kwapisz-Grabowska creates human forms that are sculptural yet flat, anonymous yet familiar. Her art explores our world, our personality, and our vision of ourselves. She employs a particular distortion that delivers an everyman to her audience, an intimate humanoid vessel representing the spirit of any one of us. Expressively posed figures overlap and coalesce with limbs that curl and turn back towards the body. Large expanses of color are rendered with a chiaroscuro forming cavernous shadowy pockets that draw our awareness in. These areas are complemented by the ambling scrawled linework that add definition to the composition.

THE OTHERS

(…) is a cycle of compositions dedicated to Woman or Doll, where both line and horizontal direction—symbolically linked to the feminine principle—play a key role. Here, fascinations with Archaic Greece emerge palpably, when slender stone images of Korai and Kourai were created, including the geometrizing yet sensual “Auxerre Lady” (8th c. BCE). The title of the cycle, “Gym,” tied to gymnastics of the body, introduces a slightly oppressive aspect to the imagery, evoking 19th-century articulated porcelain dolls, the obscene and “incomplete” sculptures of Hans Bellmer’s “Puppen” series, or perhaps the cord-bound female bodies in Araki’s photographs. The intimate yet light space surrounding the silhouettes, along with the Japanese aura of the paintings, recalls the haiku-like brevity of Teresa Pągowska’s painterly poems.
Magdalena Kwapisz emphasizes impressions from viewing Cycladic Female Idols, reminding us of the beauty in abstracted stone proportions. In her art, the horizontal grounding to the Earth captivates (e.g., “As in Heaven”), along with the femininity and dreamlike quality of the imagery…
Text: Dr. Dorota Grubba-Thiede, Inne / Others Gallery of Art Pionova

The Nude

The nude, in her interpretation, is a harmony of forms and colors, a depth of tranquility. Women are both present and absent on her canvases—they never fully constitute themselves through facial character, but rather live as forms, almost geometric. It is hard not to see the pattern of her work in the contemplative compositions of icons. The boundless spaces forming the backgrounds do not reside in sky, earth, or cosmos; they inhabit rather an incomprehensible distant dimension. This meditative balance and calm bear the mark of harmony in delicate sounds—or rather, total silence. For only silence can fill the boundless space of her paintings
Inne / Others, Galeria Sztuki PIONOVA

A silhouette story

Kwapisz-Grabowska’s canvases delve into the fragile architecture of human form and psyche. Figures, mapped like abstract landscapes, sprawl boldly across the surface in fragmented arrays. Through a restrained, powdery palette, she molds bodies that feel chiseled and volumetric yet eerily planar—universal archetypes that stir a haunting sense of recognition. Her work probes the essence of existence, identity, and self-perception, wielding deliberate distortions to forge an everyman silhouette: a poignant, shared conduit for the human soul. Poses brim with raw emotion as limbs twist inward, merging forms in fluid entanglements. Vast color fields, sculpted by dramatic light and shadow, carve out mysterious voids that beckon the gaze, while loose, wandering contours lend rhythmic structure to the scene.

ULTRAMARINE

ULTRAMARINE at the Poznań Vinci Art Gallery refers to the blue mineral pigment used in paint production, once the most expensive pigment after gold.

Blue Hue

"ULTRAMARINE” at the Poznań Vinci Art Gallery refers to the color of the famous blue mineral pigment used in paint production. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was the most expensive available pigment (second only to gold), derived from Lapis lazuli rock not found in Europe. Hence, ultramarine was originally the name for the mineral lapis lazuli. It was frequently used in painting for the robes of angels or the Virgin Mary. Ultramarine was prized for its color intensity and resistance to light and alkaline substances. In the early 19th century, the possibility of synthetic ultramarine production was discovered, making it one of the world’s more popular coloring agents.
The ultramarine tonality also served as inspiration for the Artist and dominates a significant portion of the works from her new series, presented during the exhibition. Painting titles: Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Milkmaid, Women in the Garden, Coco Chanel, Tamara de Lempicka, Prima Ballerina, Frida, Lady with an Ermine, Isabella of Bourbon, Harlequin, Judith, and many others, guide the viewer through the Artist’s diverse inspirations, which include famous works by old masters as well as well-known figures from cultural history—icons and stage stars. The Artist also eagerly draws on contemporary motifs related to sport and dance—the GYM series, tennis player, ballet. The aesthetic of her paintings is dominated by geometrization and minimalization of composition, indicating a clear fascination with Japanese culture—the KOKESHI series, GEISHA. The works are created in the Artist’s own technique, often exposing fragments of raw canvas. They play with stretcher shapes and distinct, contrasting colors.

Pippi Longstocking

Pippi Longstocking was the fascination of my childhood—she’s wild, colorful, diverse, total, abstract, feminist, independent, funny, freckled… Pippi also serves as the axis of my virtual exhibition, or rather her braids, which trace the horizontal direction of our gallery tour.
We begin by stepping into ancient and dark centuries, with paintings by Rogier van der Weyden, Francisco de Goya, and Diego Velázquez… and our first celebrity appears, a somewhat flirtatious Nicolaus Copernicus (….rumored to have been a woman). Suddenly, figures straight from pop culture emerge: the dark Darth Vader and the luminous Leia Organa. Through her, we gently enter the simple, serene Orient, symbolized for me by the Geisha. The Geisha is a sign—circle and triangle, masculine and feminine principles, Yin and Yang—all contained in one minimalist shape.
Next opens the world of sport, which interests me not so much cognitively as theoretically, as a Platonic fusion of ideal body and spirit. Golf, tennis, gym—and the essence of such representation is the Gym cycle: figures in three colors, movement captured in the frame. Thus appears our next celebrity, tennis player Andre Agassi. Following him come ballet figures. Ballet is both art and sport, merging steel muscles with the lightness and grace of movement.
After the tennis player comes the songstress—perhaps the opera diva Maria Callas. The subsequent paintings are loose variations on color and form, including my (already next) interpretation of Édouard Manet’s famous Luncheon on the Grass and Henri Rousseau’s somewhat naive The Dream. There’s also the wild Little Red Riding Hood and her story with a message not just for children.
Finally, we enter the early 20th century, where its icons appear: Tamara de Lempicka in emerald green, tweed-clad Coco Chanel, and blood-red Édith Piaf. Women who dared to live without regrets.
And that’s the exhibition for these challenging times… like Pippi’s freckles.

woman as such does not exist

Julia Kristeva

Julia Kristeva, one of the most influential thinkers of contemporary feminism, once noted that “woman as such does not exist.” This, of course, does not refer to the physical absence of the fair sex, but to the fluid nature of their personality. As a subject, woman continually redefines herself. Kristeva’s erudite reflections flashed through my mind when I looked at Magdalena Kwapisz-Grabowska’s paintings. For they seem, in some sense, to speak precisely of becoming woman.
The motif of the body repeats on the canvases: trembling, deformed. Muted, pastel coloring contrasts with vivid hues placed here and there. The bodies appear to be in motion, though torn from context—lacking background and a specific situation in which they find themselves. They evoke emotions that are hard to name. The canvases are in no way illustrations of psychoanalytic theories; they simply address the essential issue of identity for every artist. Over Kristeva’s Lacan-inspired deliberations, they hold one serious advantage: they are a pleasure to look at.

tekst: Magazyn „Weranda” 

woman perspective.

Kwapisz- Grabowska tries to capture is a female body, with its constant metamorphosis, which leads to the continuous transformation of personality.

Nominated by

....art critics and collectors alike for the exhibition in POSK Gallery, in London, Magdalena Kwapisz-Grabowska places a woman in the center of her artistic practice. She is fascinated not only by female bodies, but explores the world of woman emotions and search for identity. Kwapisz-Grabowska’s art is never obvious, because her paintings remain in between figuration and abstraction, drawing a thin line between beauty and ugliness. One can find many body parts suggestions across the artist’s canvases. Nipples, feet, hands, hair, but what Kwapisz- Grabowska tries to capture is a female body, with its constant metamorphosis, which leads to the continuous transformation of personality. Looking at her works is akin to witnessing the creation process, search for identity and ‘the process of becoming’. The spectator can feel anxious, because of synthesis and deformation, two of the artist’s favourite strategies. This unique, intimate atmosphere is intensified by her exploration of colour. Gray, white and black are counterpointed by strong pink and red accents. The artist experiments with paint layers, covering her canvases unevenly, sometimes with strong, impasto brush strokes, sometimes gently, like in a watercolor. She has developed her own painting style, in which she remains truly consistent. Kwapisz-Grabowska painting stands in broader Polish and global artistic context.
She is influenced by Teresa Pagowska, a prominent Polish painter and the leading personality of the New Figuralism movement. Echoes of Tadeusz Kantor’s esthetics are also apparent, especially of his informal period. Major European 20th century art icons, like Francis Bacon, had strong impact on her. Kwapisz-Grabowska shares a similar, brutal way of handling a human figure, deformation, love of colour and smooth backgrounds, leaving painted figures out of context. Some of those backgrounds are just unprimed canvases, another similarity with Bacon. The Polish painter challenges the long tradition of female nude, which has always been a domain of male academic artists. She follows the nude iconography laying women models down, undressing them, but she confronts the whole tradition from a different, woman perspective.

 „RE_CORR”
Baascha - figura w kwadracie

Baasch, an outstanding artist, surprises with his latest album, which features the extraordinary painting “Figure in a Square” by Kwapisz-Grabowska. This fusion blends musical and visual art.

Art History is a Woman

I saw Magda Kwapisz-Grabowska’s paintings and was immediately captivated, recognizing their artistic excellence in every inch and detail, in the minutiae and the masterful construction of compositions. This style and these figurations represent painting of the highest caliber—not only through the lens of brilliant concepts executed with lightness and freedom in a highly distinctive and original manner. I’ve seen many works in this genre, but never human and female figures shaped quite like this.
Color and its intensifications act like timbres in musical tunings—connections, temperatures, relationships between light and shadow. Synthesis, derealization, tendencies toward moderate geometrization, abstraction, distortion, chaotic and dynamic handling of forms. Decoration through skillful details that create phenomenal displays of creations, outfits, hairstyles, accessories, attributes, and complementary elements enhancing the ideological message or content within the pictorial arrangements. Strengthening and lending meaning to symbolic resonances, characteristics of the depicted figures.
Fleeting, brilliant vignettes—figures stripped of obvious anatomical concerns, yet undeniably rooted in nature and existence. They possess a masterful virtuosity that I can’t yet fully articulate in words. There’s a genius artistic creation at work here, enabling this phenomenal style! Ballet dancers, tennis players, athletes. Heroines from the most famous operas like Carmen. Singers, composers, and stage legends like Nina Simone; harlequins à la Picasso; internationally renowned artists like Frida. Pastisches of her works alongside Velázquez’s Infantas, Vermeer, Monet, Goya, Fragonard, Rembrandt, Rousseau, Tamara de Lempicka, Rogier van der Weyden, Józef Chełmoński, Otto Dix, Toulouse-Lautrec, Egon Schiele, Ingres, Manet, Gustav Klimt, Leonardo da Vinci, Olga Boznańska, Magritte, Roy Lichtenstein. Bridal divas and fashion divas straight from runway shows by the most esteemed designers like Coco Chanel. Movie stars and cinematic icons. Inspirations from famous films like Star Wars. Portraits of humanity’s benefactors like Nicolaus Copernicus. Monarchs from history like Elizabeth I Tudor. Religious painting influences. Asian culture and the geisha style of Japan. The ethnicity of the “Panama Women.” Fictional and fairy-tale characters like Little Red Riding Hood or Pippi Longstocking. Space flights and cosmic conquests. Subtle nudes.
Art History is a Woman – A page dedicated to art and its connections to life.

In  my paintings...

... deformation is deliberate. It serves as a conscious strategy, a way of provoking the viewer to search for familiar shapes and forms within what first appears to be chaos. Each composition becomes a kind of visual riddle — a rebus that invites interpretation. Through distortion, I aim to construct a world that mirrors reality, yet operates according to a different order — my own. It is a world governed by intuition, tension, and emotion rather than logic.I strive to create an aesthetic that transcends conventional boundaries — one that merges what is usually seen as incompatible: beauty and ugliness, movement and stillness, balance and imbalance, horizontal and vertical. My paintings are an ongoing pursuit of harmony within contradiction, a search for the unity that can exist between opposing forces.I am fascinated by the human being — and, in particular, by the woman. The female body, with its soft lines and natural fluidity, has always captivated me. Over time, however, the literal depiction of a woman — her face, her physical traits — has become less important. In the evolution of my painting, the figure transforms from an individual into a symbol, a paraphrase, an archetype. She ceases to belong to a specific time or person; she becomes a timeless sign, a representation of the feminine essence itself.Painting, for me, is a form of struggle. It begins with the even color of the primed surface and the invisible image hidden beneath it. The image is already there — my task is to uncover it, to reveal what lies dormant within the material. That is why certain motifs or fragments return again and again in my work: they are traces of that ongoing dialogue between what is concealed and what emerges, between the visible and the invisible.

Neo_Figuration

Kwapisz - Grabowska’s art is never obvious, because her paintings remain in between figuration and abstraction, drawing a thin line between beauty and ugliness. One can find many body parts suggestions across the artist’s canvases. Nipples, feet, hands, hair, but what Kwapisz- Grabowska tries to capture is a female body, with its constant metamorphosis, which leads to the continuous transformation of personality. Looking at her works is akin to witnessing the creation process, search for identity and ‘the process of becoming’. The spectator can feel anxious, because of synthesis and deformation, two of the artist’s favorite strategies. This unique, intimate atmosphere is intensified by her exploration of colour. Gray, white and black are counterpointed by strong pink and red accents. The artist experiments with paint layers, covering her canvases unevenly, sometimes with strong, impasto brush strokes, sometimes gently, like in a watercolor. She has developed her own painting style, in which she remains truly consistent.Kwapisz-Grabowska painting stands in broader Polish and global artistic context. She is influenced by Teresa Pagowska, a prominent Polish painter and the leading personality of the New Figuralism movement. Echoes of Tadeusz Kantor’s esthetics are also apparent, especially of his informal period. Major European 20th century art icons, like Francis Bacon, had strong impact on her. Kwapisz-Grabowska shares a similar, brutal way of handling a human figure, deformation, love of colour and smooth backgrounds, leaving painted figures out of context. Some of those backgrounds are just unprimed canvases, another similarity with Bacon. The Polish painter challenges the long tradition of female nude, which has always been a domain of male academic artists. She follows the nude iconography laying women models down, undressing them, but she confronts the whole tradition from a different, woman perspective.
by Michalina Sablik, Bohema Nowa Sztuka, Warsaw, Poland

Movement's Philosophical Reflections

The human figure embodies motion, frozen mid-action in surreal gymnasium settings, a metaphorical vessel of energy.

GYM
Motion Essence

In this series, the human figure becomes a vessel of motion—captured mid-action, suspended in time, and placed within surreal, abstracted gymnasium spaces. These are not mere depictions of athleticism; they are meditations on the essence of movement, the tension between physical exertion and metaphysical reflection. The moment of motion is frozen, yet it vibrates with energy, inviting the viewer to contemplate the body not only as a biological mechanism but as a philosophical and symbolic entity.A deliberate chromatic restraint defines the visual language of the series: white, black, and red. These three elemental colours evoke the primal forces of air, earth, and fire—deeply atavistic symbols of human existence. White suggests breath, spirit, and transcendence; black anchors the body to gravity and materiality; red ignites passion, vitality, and transformation. This triadic palette is not only aesthetic—it is conceptual, invoking archetypes and ancient energies that resonate across cultures and epochs.Yet perhaps the deeper resonance lies in the philosophical lineage of the gymnasium itself. The term gym originates from the Greek gymnasion, which in turn derives from gymnastike—a word formed from gymno- (“naked”) and astikos(“orderly, systematic”). In ancient Greece, physical exercises were performed unclothed, symbolizing purity, discipline, and the unity of body and soul. The gymnasium was not merely a place of training—it was a space of education, reflection, and the pursuit of Areté, the ideal of human excellence.This Platonic ideal—where bodily perfection and spiritual harmony converge—ech​oes throughout the series. The figures, though stylized and abstracted, embody a striving toward balance, symmetry, and transcendence. They are not portraits of athletes, but archetypes of human potential. Their placement in dreamlike gym spaces suggests a metaphysical arena, where the boundaries between reality and imagination dissolve.In contemporary usage, gym refers to a fitness center, a site of physical transformation. But in this artistic context, it becomes a metaphor for existential discipline—a place where the human form is sculpted not only by effort, but by meaning. The works invite us to reconsider the gym as a sacred space, where movement becomes ritual, and the body becomes a conduit for philosophical inquiry.

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