People like to own beautiful things, even more when they think they are valuable, when a painting is not just a painting, but there is a meaning, a story a personality or a fairytale behind. They are titillated by the prospect that the things they own are unique, and they are the chosen one to posses them. There is also an exiting hope that the piece might be even more valuable than they thought, for example in the future… So baying art is fun,a luxury fun of course.

Why do I paint the things I paint? My figures are often somewhat lost in space, with big wondering eyes, searching for something to hold on to, sensitive, vulnerable, insecure, longing for love and affiliation. Lately I place them in abstract spaces, because the world itself is neither logic nor safe.

My art is probably a product of my own life-story. Born in Ober-Schlesien in Poland, grown up under communism, daughter of a chemist father and a violin-playing medical doctor mother of German descent. Being 12 years old I moved to West Germany. There I experienced being a foreigner for the first time. Three years later when moving back I was also a foreigner in Poland since we came from “the Rich West”. Six years later I moved back to Germany to study in Berlin. Nine years later to Switzerland. Three years later to Belgium… I was a foreigner for 21 years.

I have created a symbol that captures this state of mind - a sense of rootlessness that seems to be symptomatic today. A simple figure, almost banal or kitschy called Rika. She reminds of the impossibility of finding our identity and place in the global world. She is a simple, naïve figure. She just longs for love, recognition and belonging. But she is faced with the hard realities of Western life, having to follow the “better future plans”. We have to be flexible, strong and easy going. Rika tries hard to adapt. Her ears are shaped like hearts because of her big need for love and her huge eyes doesn’t stop to wonder. Her big head and torso houses the huge brain and an immense soul. Her small hands and legs have no power to stop wars or influence political decisions.

Rika stands for values like sensibility, simplicity, sincerity, tolerance, friendship and love.

I’m now painting a series of pictures called “art over sofa”. I am
challenging myself to be “pretty and clever” in my art. What do people want
in their living rooms? It should be pleasant, but not boring, happy but not
kitchy, colourful or black and white, but matching the sofa, rather minimalist
but rich, not too figurative but also not too abstract. Some kind of inner
landscapes, mysterious something that could be anything but nothing
concrete, so that it will never be understood, and therefore stays an
interesting open question, never boring.
People are sometimes sad and disappointed with the realities. They want
some colours and some hope and some mystery where they can escape.
Let’s put beautiful mystery on the wall and give art a chance to be THE
SOURCE of hope, joy and faith in humanity. Wow, what a pathetic statement.

My art has turned to positive art. I would call it funny art, or Joyful art, feel-good art. But it is also sensual art, ironic erotic art, art with humour, art with a contemplative touch, and sometimes melancholic. Keywords for my painting style: art over sofa, colourful paintings, joyful paintings, contemporary paintings, abstract paintings and figurative paintings, modern paintings, funny paintings, sensual paintings and happy paintings, somebody called it all pop art.