Paulina Stasik is a Kraków-based artist who came to our attention while surveying Polish contemporary art, an interest that stems back to the advent of C-print Journal in 2013. In connection to her most recent solo exhibition "Skin in the Game" at Lyles & King in NYC in the beginning of 2024, we approached her with an interest to work together and fast-forward to the present and we're about to open our latest exhibition project "Shi Shi Chi Chi" at Belenius in which Paulina is one of the four participating artists.
C-P: Hi Paulina, it’s very nice to be talking to you. Before we dive into your work, I’d like just take a moment to ask about the years prior to enrolling in Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts, the oldest fine art institution in Poland. What was it like growing up in Kraków?
P.S: Hi Koshik, it's a pleasure to talk with you! To start off, I should say that I didn’t grow up in Kraków. I moved here for university in 2010, so it’s been 15 years now, which feels like a long time! I actually grew up in a small town in southeastern Poland, but I left home at 16 to attend an art high school in a bigger city.
Getting into the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków was a dream come true. It’s the oldest art school in Poland, and I really wanted to develop strong technical skills. But over time, I started feeling a bit frustrated with the constant repetition of still lifes and figure studies. Things got better in my second year, though that’s when I started searching for my artistic path and personal reasons to paint. And in the end, those reasons turned out to be even more important than technical skills themselves.
C-P: You have been showing with Raster since 2020, a gallery in Warsaw with a notable roster including Slavs & Tatars, Karolina Jablonska and Wilhelm Sasnal. I absolutely love Warsaw as an art destination but from your point of view as an artist; how do you find it?
At Raster, I had the opportunity to hold two solo exhibitions and take part in various art fairs. It’s a gallery with a long history and extensive experience in the art scene, representing, as you mentioned, some truly exceptional artists. Of course, the fact that it’s a Warsaw-based gallery is also significant, this is where the country’s artistic life is really centered.
I think the best proof of that is the recent opening of the new building of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw an incredible space right in the heart of the city. It’s also worth noting that after eight years of conservative rule in Poland, there was a change of government in December 2023. This is an important moment, bringing with it the promise of a fresh start for cultural institutions. As a result, we’re beginning to see more open and meaningful programming, which will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the development of the artistic community in Poland.
C-P: Your work is informed by a lot. There’s so much that comes to mind yet I struggle a little to put it eloquently into words. For instance, I know it’s very anchored in art historical references. Also at first glance, the surreal elements are evident. There’s the sisterhood and constellations of naked female bodies in various dimensions, but your work also deals with the notions of death which is perhaps less obvious.
P.S: In my paintings, the most important subject is always the human being. I’m interested in memory, the way we experience time, and relationships with others. I’m fascinated by the body – its duality. On one hand, it’s full of strength, passion, and life; on the other, it’s fragile, vulnerable to pain, aging, and the passage of time.
Lately, I’ve been telling more women’s stories. The women in my works are mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, rivals. They appear in different roles and relationships, sometimes strong and dominant, sometimes fragile and lost. Their bodies are present, but it’s not about their literalness. It’s more about what they express through their gestures, their gazes, the tension in their muscles.
My compositions are often open, as if events are about to unfold just outside the frame. It’s a bit like a frozen movie scene - paused, yet suggesting what happens next. Sometimes I use my own image, but not as a self-portrait – more as a starting point for alternative stories, where everyone can find something of their own.
I don’t really think about whether my paintings are surreal. I don’t place them in specific locations, and my characters don’t have clothes or accessories that would tie them to a particular time. They prefer to exist outside of reality, suspended in some other space. I often play with scale, enlarging or shrinking, sometimes deliberately distorting figures, as if their bodies aren’t fully defined, as if they change depending on emotions.
Because emotions are key for me. The ones visible on faces, and those hidden deeper, leaving marks on the body. It’s through the body that we experience the world, but who we are is shaped somewhere between what’s visible and what’s unsaid.
C-P: Also, you have a very distinct color palette; purple, pink, red and shades of blue recurs throughout your body of work. Tell me a little about the choices of colors.
P.S: Yes, that’s true, color is incredibly important to me. Looking at my paintings, you can see the dominance of red, pink, and the contrasting presence of blue. Color plays a key role in my work it intensifies tension and creates a specific atmosphere. In a way, I feel like I’ve become a bit of a slave to these colors.
The world I paint is filtered through shades of red and blue because, at its core, life is nothing but extremes – love and pain. I try to balance between these colors, blur the boundaries, and let them flow seamlessly into one another. In my paintings, color is the primary means of expression, it’s through color that emotions emerge, and I build the tension within each story.
I paint in thin layers, slowly and thoughtfully constructing the composition, gradually adding new layers of paint. I often repaint sections, following my intuition rather than a predetermined color sketch. This way, the painting gradually emerges from the chaos of colors.
C-P: Run me through how an average day in the studio looks like. On that note, I also know you’re in the process of moving to a larger studio space. How’s that coming along?
P.S: I’ve been renting the same studio for eight years. It’s in a great location, but the downside is that there’s no heating, so I have to use additional heaters and dress warmly. I try to get to the studio by 10 AM and usually stay until 6 PM. Even though it’s creative work, I set certain boundaries for myself. I also avoid dealing with anything unrelated to painting. I need time to get into the flow. I typically work on three paintings at the same time. One is nearly finished, the second is in the underpainting stage, and the third only exists in my head.
My process is time-consuming. I paint in thin layers, gradually building depth and intensity through glazes. When working on a larger format, I lay it on the floor and use acrylic paint in a watercolor-like technique, adding a lot of water. This often creates unexpected textures on the surface. My paintings go through many changes, and the final result is often completely different from what I initially imagined.
I have to say, I love this process of transformation. The painting gradually evolves, but I’m the one who decides when it’s finished. I take my time—it’s a meditative process for me.
Lately, I’ve been working on larger formats, and my current studio has become too small. In the coming months, I’m planning to move to a bigger space, one I’ve been dreaming of for a long time. Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes as planned.
C-P: Backtracking your trajectory, it seems to have been very consistent for the past five years or so. However, I believe you haven’t shown a lot of sculpture in your most recent shows which I know also makes part of your practice.
P.S: Over the past three years, I’ve focused primarily on painting. My creative process is quite time-consuming, just as I mentioned earlier, I work by applying successive glazes. Plus, as soon as I finish one painting, I immediately want to start something new, so there’s always a lot happening in my studio.
I’ve mainly created sculptures for specific exhibitions. For example, in 2020, I participated in a show where the central theme was inspired by the poetic work of Polish artist Erna Rosenstein. Interestingly, although she’s better known for her assemblages and paintings, I found a lot of inspiration in her poetry in relation to my own painting practice. It was her poems that led me to create two sculptures “Eyes”, made from epoxy resin, and “Organism”, which was a ceramic piece.
Earlier, for another exhibition exploring, broadly speaking - the longing for love, I created a ceramic and steel sculpture depicting two tongues. All of my sculptural works have been closely connected to my paintings.
C-P: Out of curiosity, who might be some of the artists that have been inspirational to you?
P.S: Let me tell you about my first artistic inspiration—I think it’s quite an interesting story!
When I was in elementary school, I won a print in a school lottery. I brought the rolled-up paper home and was absolutely thrilled. At the time, I thought the style was completely groundbreaking. Everything looked different, the figures had blurred faces, the artist used thick, textured paint, and the colors seemed to vibrate. The painting felt alive!
I didn’t think about that moment again until years later in art school when I discovered that the piece was “Oarsmen at Chatou” by Renoir. It turned out that my first real artistic inspiration was figurative Impressionism. My love for color has stayed with me ever since I’m drawn to artists who use light and color in a painterly, intuitive way. I especially admire Pierre Bonnard, whose works continue to amaze me with their intensity and emotional depth.
It’s hard to pinpoint just a few artists who have influenced me, but I can name some women whose work explores themes of the body and femininity artists like Alina Szapocznikow, Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Anna Güntner, Ewa Kuryluk, as well as Miriam Cahn and Lisa Yuskavage.
C-P: In the beginning of 2024, you presented a solo show titled "Skin in the game" at Lyles & King in NYC. Now that’s something I would imagine most emerging artists would dream of. New York City. What was that entire experience like?
P.S: This exhibition was important to me. The title, "Skin in the Game", referred to the risks women take when revealing their true emotions and pursuing their own goals despite the patriarchal system they still have to navigate."Skin in the Game" was also the title of one of the featured paintings, depicting a limp figure resting on the heroine’s shoulder—her discarded skin, symbolizing the rejection of expectations imposed on her since childhood. The central figure undergoes a rite of passage, transforming from a child into a woman, carrying her own childhood skin like a trophy of her metamorphosis. The entire exhibition carried a similar message, emphasizing themes of emancipation and inner transformation.
I spent nine days in New York, immersing myself in the city’s vibrant art scene. It was an exhilarating experience, visiting galleries ranging from commercial spaces in Tribeca and Chelsea to the most important museums. The most striking exhibition I saw was "Herstory", Judy Chicago’s groundbreaking retrospective at the New Museum. Spanning over six decades of her work, it showcased her unwavering commitment to women’s rights, equality, and social change.
New York captivated me not only with its artistic diversity but also with its unique energy. It’s a city where art is happening now—not as a distant concept in catalogues or on screens, but as an intense, tangible experience.
C-P: You and I currently working on a group exhibition at Belenius Gallery in Stockholm for which you’ll be presenting two new paintings; "In the Mirror" and "In Half Step". While they are two separate works, we have decided to exhibit them together as a pair in the show. Would you like tell me about the ideas that went into making these?
"In the Mirror" is a double portrait, but what truly draws attention is the reflection in the mirror. The heroine wraps her hair around her finger, a movement reminiscent of pulling back a slingshot, as if something inevitable is about to happen. Perhaps it’s the moment just before releasing an imaginary projectile and shattering the mirror?
The motif of the mirror has always held something intriguing in art. In the Baroque period, it was often associated with self-reflection. One of my favorite examples is Bernardo Strozzi’s "Vanitas" where a mature woman gazes at her own reflection. In older art, a woman’s appearance was frequently linked to her character. Ugliness was equated with cunning, while old age signified wisdom or sinister intentions. In the Baroque, the perception of aging became more empathetic.
If the heroine of my painting were truly to break the mirror, wouldn’t it be an act of defiance? Perhaps an attempt to break free from societal expectations of femininity, from the roles imposed on us by culture?
In "In Half Step" the figure balances on one leg, standing on a stone in a rushing stream. The water is in constant motion, it changes, never remaining the same, instantly evoking the passage of time and transience. It also functions as a kind of mirror, but unlike a still surface, here reflection is impossible. The heroine cannot see herself, which may suggest the difficulty of achieving clear self-recognition.
Comparing these two paintings, the central motif becomes the mirror, whether literal as in "In the Mirror" or symbolic as in "In Half Step." In one, the reflection is sharp, offering a direct confrontation with oneself. In the other, the flowing water disrupts clarity, making self-understanding elusive. Balancing on one leg requires effort, and the state of being caught in a half-step represents uncertainty, a moment in which no decision has yet been made.
Perhaps, in essence, both paintings speak of the same thing, the search for oneself in an ever-changing world.
C-P: I also know that in the pipeline for this year, is your very first artist book. How exciting is that?! What is your approach for the project?
P.S: Incredibly exciting! I’ve dreamed about this for a long time! The book launch will take place during my solo institutional exhibition at BWA Tarnów in October this year. The book will tell a story through a selection of my paintings, likely from the past five years. It will also include my own texts, which is a new experience for me. I often write down my thoughts about my paintings, and now some of them will be part of this book. Keep your fingers crossed for the success of this process! Of course, I’m setting aside a copy just for you.
All images courtesy of the artist.