Dominika Kowynia

Setting out from a careful observation of reality, the painting practice of Dominika Kowynia (Sosnowiec, Poland, 1978) conveys a critical view of our time. Her figurative oil paintings intertwine current events, recent history, and literature, revealing fragments of her own personal experience. A childhood spent in exile in Libya and then her reintegration in Poland as a teenager led the artist to mature a particular sensitivity towards the social and political conditions of her native country, especially on issues such as attacks on the civil rights of women and minorities, the growing anti-migrant sentiment as well as the climate and environmental crisis.

Shifting from an intimate sphere to a global perspective, Kowynia overlays autobiographical episodes and collective concerns, staging not only her own story and that of her native land, but also that of a world in which each individual’s reality constitutes a universal experience.

Through an essential and almost unadorned expressive language, the artist combines realistic and abstract representations, conferring an aura of enigma and ambiguity to scenes of ordinary and domestic life. The dramatic use of light and shadow as well as color fields – which are alternatively more intense and vigorous, or more gentle and languid – endow her works with a strong emotional tension. Veiled with a sense of melancholy and helplessness, the paintings invite us to enter the complexity of the present and to confront the brutality of a world that is progressively disintegrating.

Dominika Kowynia (Sosnowiec, 1978) lives and works in Katowice. She is a painter specialized in figurative oils. She graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice in 2003 and has worked at the same institution as a teacher ever since. She earned a Doctoral Degree in 2010.

She has held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in several group exhibitions.

Recent solo and two person exhibitions include: Panoramas, New Theater, Warsaw, Poland (2023); Animals she houses, Polana Institute Gallery, Warsaw, Poland, and Nada Fair in New York (2023); Inner Edge, Import Export Gallery, Warsaw, Poland (2022); Attempt at Reversing, BWA Bielsko Biala, Poland (2020). Recent group exhibitions include: Building a garden around a burning house, Duza Scena Gallery, Poznan, Poland (2023); Who will write the history of tears. Artists on Woman’s Rights, Museum of Modern Arts, Warsaw, Poland (2022); After Desire, Monti8 Gallery, Italy (2022); Women at the Academies of Fine Arts, Aula Gallery, Gdansk, Poland (2022); Something in common/Warsaw Under Construction, Museum of Modern Art, Poland (2020).

Her paintings have been included in the Collection of the ING Polish Art Foundation, the Art Collection of the Bielska BWA Gallery, the Collection of the Bęc Zmiana Foundation and in many private collections.