The work of the artist Justyna Kieselewicz (Warsaw, Poland, 1983) is aesthetically extravagant, mischievous, and lively. She skillfully employs different techniques, from raw brushstrokes and spatula strokes to techniques from the traditional European school. She seamlessly combines canvas with fabrics, giving three-dimensionality to her pieces and highlighting relevant details of the portrayed objects.

Justyna’s early memories are shrouded in a monochromatic mist reminiscent of brutalist architecture, associated with the communist regime. As a personal escape from the visual monotony of her surroundings, the artist began creating unconventional images with pigments and paper, and color would become a protective barrier against the melancholy of her daily life. The new freedoms and cultural curiosities of the political transformation that allowed Western influences—especially Disney cartoons and cable television—legally into Poland influenced her ideas and the path her artistic practice would take.

In Kieselewicz’s paintings, exotic flora, bright colors, excesses, and personified animals dominate the canvas, alongside traditional European motifs. Kieselewicz boldly and unpretentiously touches on intimate themes, plays with eroticism, and rejects the taboos of having grown up in a communist and Catholic country, in an era of superstitions and prejudices. This is why the symbols, scenes, and colors she includes in her compositions contain stories of the past, present, and future.