Karolina Nowak-Konieczna is a painter from Poland.

She has been honing her craft since childhood, spent in the countryside that with all its fantastical landscapes and wonders of nature shaped her imagination an skills. Her first tries at drawing and painting depicted the animals and plants of the Polish countryside as well as the four distinct seasons of the country’s calendar year. All of these helped create Karolina’s intriguing style of magical realism.

Another factor in her artistic upbringing was the five-year stint in the High School of Arts in Gdynia, located in a picturesque 19th century building at the foot of the sea, itself an inspiration for young artists and a perfect setting to study and practice. Her next five-year educational spell, in the History of Arts Department at the University of Gdansk, added an academical background to her resume. At this time her works were already being displayed in the Polish art galleries.

During her university studies Karolina also worked as an art gallery manager, helping other artists with their exhibitions and designing her own fashion accessories. She also started experimenting with abstract art and fashion sketch art. Her unique style of drawing, using very small dots that evolve into bigger, recognizable forms became quite popular. With the Master’s Degree in History of Art in hand she moved for a short spell to Hannover, Germany, where she exhibited and sold her works as well.

Karolina has been living and working in Dubai since 2013.

In an exhibition held at the Ductac Gallery of Light in Al Barsha the works introduced by Karolina were made using the already mentioned “dotted” technique. They were hugely metaphorical, full of hidden shapes and meaning, dark and brooding.

In another exhibition held at the BurJuman Centre she introduced emotive works created with a new extraordinary technique – painting with eye shadows. The drawings and paintings made using this technique are susceptible to changes in light – depending on the angle of observation and the intensity of light falling on the painting, the colors sparkle and slightly change their tints and tones.

Karolina's art has also different style: realistic and poetic; her works share the eye shadow effect but a different through-line – on this part it’s about women and their fashion. The characters on display are timeless examples of beauty and style inspired by the 1950’s and the 1960’s. These women are sometimes subtle and innocent and sometimes mysterious and dangerous, but they are always confident and mesmerizing. And most importantly, although they are plucked from a long bygone era, they reveal how relevant these classical trends and details can be in the modern times. In these depictions every detail has a meaning – the subtle gestures, the gloves, the earrings, the handbags and hats, the textures of the fabric, all of them exude confidence and class. The way these women look at us, the fleeting emotions hidden behind their eyes, this effect has been made possible by the eye shadow technique – this strenuous process yields wonderful and surprising results. When women use eye shadow, they play with their image, changing it to underline a facet of their personality; in Karolina’s works eye shadows are used to a similar effect, they add to these female characters’ depth and give a glimpse into their personalities, they show and explore their confidence and timeless beauty.

More about Karolina’s art you can find on her blog:

https://takpachniedubaj.wordpress.com/about/