Martyna Borowiecka was born in 1989 in Kielce (PL). In 2013 she graduated with distinction from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, studying Painting and Fashion Design. In 2019 she received her PhD title. Martyna Borowiecka has participated in several individual and group exhibitions, and has won many competitions such as The National Painting Competition – VII Triennial with Still Life organized by BWA in Sieradz as well as the Grand Prix of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, PL (2015). She lives and works in Cracow where she is undergoing a painting internship at Paulina Ołowska’s Studio.
Borowiecka places great emphasis on fashion and femininity, she believes these qualities should not be suppressed or ignored in our society. Her strong values regarding femininity and fashion is reflected in her art work.
Borowiecka works with techniques inspired by the old master painters, such as one of her most favored, the Flemish painter; Cornelius Norbertus Gijsbrecht (1630 – 1675). Gijsbercht specialised in still life paintings, illusion, trompe l’oeil, vanitas motifs and worked for the Danish Court in the 17th century. Borowiecka uses the trompe l’oeil technique to trick the viewers eyes and to diminish the border between reality and imagination.
Borowiecka’s working method is also inspired by Cabinets of Curiosities, also known as Wunderkammer or Wonder-Room, from the 16th century. These Cabinets were rooms with notable collections of objects belonging to natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics. Martyna’s Cabinet of Curiosities is placed in her studio, where she keeps memories that she then transforms into her own collage oil paintings:
” Susceptible to visual stimulation, I meticulously created my private “museum of imagination”. Once started, the process does not want to stop, and the resulting images appear constantly, faithfully standing by my side day and night.” – Martyna Borowiecka