Underrated art markets: Polish artists to watch II.
By popular demand, I’m back with Polish Artists to Watch II, part of the Underrated Art Markets series. Recently, I’ve developed a genuine fascination with Polish artists—especially women—and I believe they’re experiencing a well-deserved momentum that will hopefully continue to grow internationally.
Another reason for this feature is a personal one: I’ve just added one of the following names to my own art collection (I’ll share more about my investments in upcoming paid articles). For now, you’re welcome to guess which one it might be.
Why Emerging Polish Women Artists Are Important & What They Offer
Revising art history & reclaiming visibility: Many contemporary female artists are actively addressing the erasures in Polish and European art history—highlighting women who were marginalized, retelling untold stories, and inserting perspectives long suppressed.
Critique of gender, the body, and domestic norms: Their work often interrogates how femininity is socially constructed, how bodies are policed or objectified, and how private/domestic spaces can serve as both sites of constraint and resistance.
Intersections with memory, folklore, and identity: Given Poland’s layered history (from partitions and communism to national myth), many young artists weave folklore, mythic symbols, archival fragments, and personal memory into works that feel both collective and intimate.
Material & formal experimentation: They explore materials, scale, mixed media, installation, and surface effects (layering, gloss, texture). This formal sophistication allows their art to be both critically engaged and aesthetically compelling.
Public & community engagement: Some artists extend their practice beyond the gallery into murals, public projects, and participatory works—broadening the reach of their ideas and engaging directly with communities.
My Curated Selection of Polish Women Artists to Watch II.
Ewa Czwartosz
Born in 1998 in Sucha Beskidzka, Poland, Ewa Czwartosz studied at the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, graduating with honours in 2023. She is represented by the Borowik Foundation, and her exhibitions include Vitruvian Women at Ujazdowski Castle CCA as well as collaborations with GNYP Gallery in Berlin.
Why she is relevant: Czwartosz is emerging as a distinctive voice of her generation, combining classical art-historical references with feminist critique. Her paintings often depict women in staged, poised settings that hover between idyllic and unsettling. Through repetition, symbolic props, and historical postures, she evokes generational weight, social roles, and the tension between inner life and outward representation.
Ideology / Approach: Her work examines how constructs of femininity are shaped, inherited, and resisted. By intervening in canonical forms, she reclaims agency for her subjects and questions the silences imposed on women across history.
Karolina Żądło (Zadło)
Short Bio: Karolina Żądło is a Polish painter who has gained increasing visibility in Poland’s contemporary art scene. Represented by the Borowik Foundation, she has exhibited alongside Ewa Czwartosz at GNYP Gallery.
Why she is relevant: Often shown together with Czwartosz, Żądło explores femininity as both an aesthetic and conceptual field. She uses culturally coded motifs—pearls, dresses, pink tones, and ornamental detail—but places them within bold, declarative visual structures. Her compositions balance delicate decoration with commanding presence.
Ideology / Approach: Żądło’s practice reclaims feminine-coded aesthetics that have historically been trivialized. By treating them as serious formal and conceptual territory, she resists the idea that feminine visual languages are lesser, asserting them instead as powerful and autonomous.
Alicja Biała
Short Bio: Alicja Biała (b. 1993, Poznań) is a Polish contemporary artist working between London, Amsterdam, and her native Poland. She studied at the Royal Drawing School (2022) and received her MA from the Royal College of Art in London (2023). Biała is known for moving fluidly across painting, sculpture, and large-scale public art—including architectural installations and murals—while developing a material-driven practice that engages nature, history, and cultural identity.
Why she is relevant: Alicja Biała is an important emerging voice in Polish contemporary art, distinguished by the way she fuses ecological narratives with cultural identity. Her recent solo show Raw Earth, Rare Earth transformed the gallery into an immersive landscape of etched metals, sculptural flora, and suspended root systems, demonstrating her ability to move between disciplines with striking impact. Her Hyperaccumulator series, commissioned for the European Parliament, underscores her role in bringing overlooked natural processes—like plants that cleanse polluted soils—into the cultural spotlight.
Ideology / Approach: Biała’s practice investigates fragility, resilience, and transformation at the intersection of ecology, history, and personal memory. Drawing on Poland’s landscapes and histories of displacement and unrest, she employs experimental techniques such as oxidation, casting, and large-scale sculptural installation. By elevating modest natural forms like roots and hyperaccumulator plants, she creates powerful metaphors for regeneration and endurance, inviting reflection on our relationship with the environment and its future.
Anna Tymińska
Short Bio: Born in 2001 in Łomża, Anna Tymińska is currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Despite her young age, her work is already entering contemporary collections and exhibitions.
Why she is relevant: As part of the newest generation of Polish painters, Tymińska explores the porous boundary between human figures and natural forms. Her paintings often blur edges, allowing forms to dissolve into one another while light, gesture, and motion play central roles.
Ideology / Approach: Tymińska’s practice is contemplative, concerned less with fixed boundaries and more with flux and permeability. Her work suggests that identity and space are co-creations, continuously shaped by light, air, and the surrounding environment.
Sophie Smorczewski
Short Bio: London-based painter of Polish origin, Sophie Smorczewski is completing her MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art after graduating from Manchester School of Art with distinction. Her work has been shown in London galleries and is gaining recognition in Europe.
Why she is relevant: Smorczewski creates atmospheric paintings that blend abstraction with ephemeral landscapes. Working with oil and homemade pigments, she embraces natural processes—oxidation, weathering, decay—that allow the surface to evolve over time. Her imagery often suggests mist, rain, fleeting blossoms, or shifting light.
Ideology / Approach: Rooted in temporality and fragility, her practice embraces impermanence as part of the work’s essence. By allowing her materials to change, she creates living surfaces that mirror memory and transience, inviting a meditative, contemplative encounter.