Magdalena Kwapisz Grabowska

Figuration + Abstraction

Education

Magdalena Kwapisz-Grabowska graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow–Katowice 1999 MFA
She received an honorable mention in the international Chelsea International Fine Art Competition in New York.
In 2015, she completed a study program in painting theory at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.

Exploration

Neo-figuration or figurative abstraction is an art style where recognizable figures or forms are transformed into abstract expressions through gesture, texture, and color. It starts with figuration - depicting people, objects, or landscapes  - but distorts them to evoke emotion rather than literal representation.

Contact

Contact me directly at ​magda.kwapisz@icloud.com or use the form below for a prompt response. I’m eager to discuss commissions, portfolio placements, or private sales tailored to your collection. 

Exhibitions

Transformation Beauty

Magdalena Kwapisz-Grabowska is a Polish painter known for blending figuration and abstraction, delving into the human form's emotional and memory-laden depths. Her work has garnered acclaim nationally and internationally.

Her distinctive style features an intense, personal language that centers on the body and memory, serving as a springboard for exploring emotions, identity, and femininity. By pushing the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, she creates ritualistic compositions.

In Kwapisz-Grabowska's paintings, particularly the female form, the body symbolizes experience, memory, and metamorphosis. Through fragmentation and deformation, she skillfully navigates the delicate balance between beauty and disruption in her compelling artworks.

Gym

In this series, the human figure becomes a vessel of motion—captured mid-action, suspended in time, and placed within surreal, abstracted gymnasium spaces. 

Geisha

The paintings reveal clear influences of Japanese art, particularly woodblock prints and the iconography of the geisha. Flattened spaces, asymmetrical compositions and a focus on contour and pattern echo the aesthetics of ukiyo-e, while the figure of the geisha appears not as an exotic stereotype, but as a refined symbol of grace, ritual and controlled emotion.

Old Masters

This series ireinterpret iconic works of art history in her own distinctive visual language. Rather than copying the originals, she distils their compositions and motifs, translating them into a personal idiom of simplified forms, altered colour relations and subtle abstraction.

Icons

Kwapisz-Grabowska also paints portraits of well-known figures from the worlds of art and culture, translating their iconic status into her own distinctive visual language.

Mono Figures

Focusing on the human body, the work seeks clarity through simplicity, distilling the form into an emblem of human presence. Painted on raw canvas, it emerges from a limited palette, where subtle contrasts reveal a quiet, inner intensity. 

Sensual Figures

Centered on the human body, the work seeks clarity through simplicity, distilling the form into an emblem of human presence. 

Figures

In this series, I return to the human figure, exploring it anew to create entirely fresh associations and an abstract quality of its own. The work gives rise to a new language of abstraction.

new

Work in progress

KO!Keshka

MORE

What do they say about?

Personally look at her work, not as an interesting abstraction of the human form, but sense of using the human form to evoke deeper pools of thought and emotion. There is a "dark side" to her painting that drew me to her. Her work is very mature and loaded with visual clues and ambiguities. I see something deeper, every time.
I look at her work. This is what makes great art. 

Art Collector

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.

Art History is a Woman

Magdalena's art beautifully blurs figuration and abstraction, evoking deep emotions. Her unique style captivates with its exploration of memory and femininity.

Art Collector

In my work, I often use raw canvas, whose natural texture and warm tone give the compositions an organic character. I am interested in the way paint seeps into the fabric’s structure and interacts with its fibers, creating surfaces of varying intensity. I like when the color doesn’t completely cover the canvas but reveals its materiality - this allows the painting to remain alive, as light and air seem to permeate its surface. This technique lets me think of painting as a dialogue between matter and gesture, where the physicality of the work becomes an essential part of its meaning.

The Japanese diptych

The japanese diptych is a pairing of two forms - ​head and body: circle, triangle, rectangle - on canvas, which together outline the silhouette of a geisha or a kokeshi. The elements can be freely arranged and combined on the wall, creating your own compositions. It is a playful exploration of color, space, and imagination.

Get in touch

submit
Dziękujemy! Twoja wiadomość została wysłana!
Przepraszamy, wiadomość nie mogła zostać wysłana. Popraw błędy i spróbuj ponownie.

Art
by Magdalena Kwapisz Grabowska

 ​ ​ ​M.F.A. Academy of Fine Arts Poland

 ​ Residency in DE

 ​ Between abstract and figuratve art

 ​ Art for sale