Artist Statement

Iwona Marchewka is a self-taught contemporary artist originally from Poland and currently based in Germany. Her abstract practice is rooted in observation — of people, everyday moments and the subtle changes in perception that shape our experience of the world. She is interested in the moments when something familiar suddenly reveals itself in a new way — when an ordinary experience takes on a personal significance.

Do you know that feeling when it rains and suddenly you feel everything a little too much? You start thinking about your life, about yourself, about what comes next. The world around you seems strangely important for no particular reason.

Nothing extraordinary is happening, yet somehow the moment feels entirely yours.

This is what draws me to the ordinary — the quiet, fleeting moments that become the backdrop for something much bigger happening within us. A certain light, the sound of rain, the wind, an evening on the way home — things that might seem insignificant can suddenly make us stop, feel more deeply, and see something differently.

For a long time, I wanted to paint what I saw: details, textures and moments that people often pass without noticing. Over time, I realised that what interested me was not simply the things themselves, but the intensity with which they could be experienced. I wanted to paint what I feel rather than simply what I see.

My abstract painting is a way of translating that experience into something tangible. I respond to how the material behaves — how paint spreads, where it stops, the edges it leaves behind and the traces of movement that cannot be completely planned. My decisions guide the work, but the material has its own voice, and I allow it to influence where the painting goes.

I am interested in the space between the ordinary moment and what it awakens within us. I do not want to tell the viewer what a painting means. I want to give them a reason to stop, look a little longer, and perhaps recognise something of their own experience in it.

My work is about deeply feeling the ordinary.