I write posts and essays covering contemporary culture, art history, exhibition reviews, film & animation, graphic design, advice for artists and philosophical musings. To see all posts I’ve published here, please visit the Archive. For articles on painting background, theory and techniques, please visit my other blog. Enjoy!
Every now and then I come across one of those “Which character from [insert: Game of Thrones, Sex and the City, Star Wars etc.] are you?” quizzes. Buzzfeed seems particularly relentless at producing them, often as many as several per day. As fun as they are, I usually ignore them, however I have taken four or five Myer-Briggs tests, which…
The question I’m most frequently asked when meeting someone new is “So, how do you like living in Portugal?”. It’s also something I’m repeatedly asked when I visit my Polish home or friends in the UK, and despite my efforts to give as exhaustive answer as possible (for it really isn’t a matter of a simple “yeah it’s great” or…
(2020 Update: In 2020, I developed a series of paintings based on the original drawings, which were presented on 10th June 2019 at the Portuguese Embassy in Warsaw as part of Dia de Portugal, The Day of Portugal, hosted by Ambassador Luís Cabaço.) In the beginning of 2018, I embarked on a slightly experimental project: a series of portraits of…
I happen to be one of those people who enjoy working from home. I have no problem with discipline, motivation, or solitude — in fact, I probably focus best when I’m alone. But working from home, as I’ve discovered over a number of years (and apartments), only works when you have a studio: a special place dedicated just to art….
Despite the jingles, sparkles, and the prospect of stuffing oneself with cake and being showered with presents, December is not necessarily as bouncy as the stuff played continuously on radio stations. For many of us it also means stress, time worries, financial worries, complicated-family-situation worries, first-Christmas-without-so-and-so worries, another-Christmas-as-a-single-gal worries and many others sources of anxiety. For me, it’s the cold — indoors…
Many years ago, as part of a part-time job hunt in London, I applied for the role of a digital retoucher. I considered myself a fairly proficient Photoshop user and the company’s boss must have thought the same, as he responded very enthusiastically to the portfolio I sent him, and gave me a task: to retouch a photo for a jewellery ad….
I was 5 years old when my Mum took me to the premiere of one of Disney’s films. It was the 1st of June, which in Poland is celebrated as the Children’s Day, and the film screening was accompanied by special attractions. One of them was some sort of improvisation-based competition which involved going up on stage and putting on a costume….
One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things. — Henry Miller from Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957) Wiping sweat off my forehead in +30 temperatures, I’ve spent the past couple of weeks unpacking and organising my stuff in Amadora, where just I’ve moved for the summer. I was humming along to Kaiser…
It may officially be the spring time, and the days might be significantly longer, but last week’s attack of snow in Poland instantly brought back the memory of those long months of harsh winter presence, with its cold waves and blue Mondays. And as I got reminded of winter, the season of dark tales and gloomy works of art, I thought this might…
Sexy Laundry (2015) by Izabela Plucińska Between the Valentine’s Day – originally a Western Christian liturgical feast, now an excuse to spend our hard-earned money on red roses and heart-shaped chocolates ($19.7 billion in the US last year) – and the Women’s Day (originally International Working Women’s Day, celebrated since 1909), I decided to write about women, love and relationships….
It is sometimes ironic and almost amusing how life will surprise us with challenges in the areas where we struggle most. Patience has never been my forté, and while I have improved myself in that regard over the course of a decade or so, I admit that I am often incapable of waiting the remaining three seconds for the microwave to heat…
As soon as November comes, with its gloominess and cold, my (already big) appetite for all things dark and morbid grows even bigger. To be fair, as someone who blossoms in light and warmth, I do actually find it hard not to succumb to misery when days get significantly shorter and darker, but I try to make the most of…
