Written by Veronica Pesantes

Born in Soviet-occupied Warsaw, Miami-based artist Justyna Kisielewicz’s paintings brim with multi-layered, socio-political references, humor, and kaleidoscopic colors. Her work will be shown for the first time at the Untitled fair during Art Basel Miami Beach after a busy year that includes five group exhibits in Paris, Warsaw, Miami and Bogota plus two solo shows. As an Eastern European living in sunny Miami, she personifies Untitled's 2024 curatorial focus of East meets West.

Behind the pastoral scenes of imminent climate catastrophe in her paintings lies a biting critique of colonialism from someone who experienced the repressive Russian occupation firsthand. As she says, “I was born into slavery,” a fact that makes her attuned to the trauma of colonialism. Color and American toys were her escape amidst the drabness of Soviet brutalist architecture.  Even her choice of crayon colors was repressive- she had 8, and the current U.S. box contains 120.

The themes in her new work, like the painting Blood Lands pictured above, delve into colonial Eastern European history and the “meeting” (invasion) of the West by tying it into scenes of the colonization of the Americas (see Spanish armada ships and conquistadores center right). Also, in the middle of the composition by the tongue of the snake the artist has included herself being stabbed by a soldier as her intrepid pomeranian Charlie Brown attempts to save her, a symbol of how her life’s trajectory was forever altered via the war and what happened to her family and Poland. (Many members of her family were killed during the Holocaust). 

Like most of her recent work it features imposing, masked figures clad in what appears like “traditional” Latin American outfits who are covered in luxury designer logos, a critique of capitalist consumption. Growing up in Poland, Latin America seemed impenetrable to her, yet her work often includes brutal scenes between the Spanish and Native Americans pulled from colonial sources. Despite her Eastern European birth, her references to the Americas make her the ultimate Miami artist, where 72% of the population identifies as Latinx.

Justyna is concerned with what Soviet occupied Poland and Latam have in common, in what unites us rather than what separates us, a noble sentiment in these polarizing times.

On a recent visit to her studio I asked Justyna, just how “traditional” Latin American “cholita” outfits that the figures wear in her work, transformed into a critique of luxury consumption, made it into her body of work? Growing up in Poland and having never visited Latin America, it seemed distant, yet in her art she captures the "magical realism" of Latam like a native.

“Feast,” the painting seen here, epitomizes the magical realism I see in Justyna’s world, beginning with the inclusion of a small self-portrait as a supplicant in the bottom left corner of the background. The blue and white “toile” frame of this painting includes scenes denouncing climate gentrification, yet another facet of her work: environmentalism. The painting addresses the specific Miami crisis of displacement . If you look at the house on the lower right side it is a Bahamian style house that was prevalent in Coconut Grove and is now being torn down to make room for pricey modern town homes that are unaffordable to any of the original tenants. A recent article I read explained how a 1,280-square-foot house like one in the painting in the “black Grove” aka Little Bahamas originally sold for $81,000, yet today its estimated market value today is over $1 million dollars. In addition, the aforementioned background of the piece includes gorgeously rendered native Florida foliage which comes from Justyna’s frequent sketching sessions at Miami’s very own Fairchild Tropical Garden.

Justyna’s use of fashion and the ubiquitous branding of Gucci, Dior, Hermes etc. is fitting given Miami’s emerging reign as a global luxury shopping destination. To me her work calls out the hypocrisy of this lucrative market, estimated at $284.00 billion in 2023, within the context of global wealth disparities. As a Pole who grew up in a society with food scarcity and few consumer choices, her brilliant inclusion of conspicuous branding is very cheeky! Her blend of humor, use of native fauna, keen awareness of economic disparities and climate gentrification plus her exploration of colonial trauma make her work imperative to understanding the current state of Miami.