Grażyna SMALEJ (1976), From Hel; 2023

Oil, canvas 30 x 40 cm
Signed, dated, described on the back: GRAŻYNA SMALEJ/-Z HELU- 2023 / OLEJ NA FLATNIE/ 30 X 40 cm/ Smalej

Painter and graphic artist, graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, she received her diploma in 2001. From 1998 to 2001, she received a scholarship from Hans Bernhardt (Germany). In 2001 she received the Grand Prix of the Minister of Culture in the Marian Michalik Competition for Young Painters in Częstochowa. She is a multiple finalist in the Bielska Jesien Biennale of Polish Painting. She has had many solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group exhibitions at home and abroad, including the Saatchi Gallery in London (Continental Shift, 2014), Lambertville in the United States (May Day, 2015). Her works are in private and institutional collections around the world in the United States, Australia, China, Japan, among others. Since 2018, she has been a member of the Sisters of the Rivers collective organizing, among other things, happenings for the protection of rivers in Poland.
In painting, the artist moves freely between various conventions -.
depending on the subject she is currently dealing with and exploring. She is a devotee of lightness in means of expression at the same time attached to the two-dimensional traditional canvas, which she sees as a field of infinite possibilities. She attaches great importance to color being for her the ideal medium for expressing emotions.