Artists

Wanda Marzec

Press release

Opening as part of Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2026 Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2026 18–20.09.2026 11am–7pm "For me, painting is a foray into the halfway unknown," Wanda Marzec once wrote in her private notes. "Although sometimes the result isn't at all what I'd expect. And yet, it always offers me the joy of creating." Marzec discovered painting was her passion in the early 1970s, although art had been a part of her life for a long time before that. Her creative path began in the department of interior design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow—the ideal place to embark on an international career, as they skills she picked up at the academy led to opportunities abroad. As designer of promotional materials for the International Company of International Exhibitions and Fairs POLEXPO, she made a living from her trade. Her education and skill set also meant she could support herself independently after she'd emigrated to the US, where she spent nearly two decades. Her first steps, however, toward a career in painting were taken in Poland, as part of various exhibitions organized by the Association of Polish Artists and Designers (ZPAP). Still, it wasn't until she landed in the US that the tempo of her career began to pick up. From the start, her ambition pushed her to share her work beyond the bounds of the diaspora. She was fascinated by the New York art scene, which had become the focal point of the feminist art movement of the 1970s. Marzec began showing her paintings in the first galleries and publications that were devoted to women artists, such as Womanart in 1977. She strove to show her works in a broad range of venues, from galleries, museums and outdoor spaces. As an artist with one foot in the corporate world, she traveled extensively across the country, her camera in hand, typically in the company of two men who rivaled for her attention: the painter Andrzej Musiał and photographer Ryszard Grzesik. The trio not only traveled together, but they exhibited together too, supporting each other's quests to capture the American art market and imagination. Painted in the second half of the 1970s, Marzec's works were characterized by a vibrant color scheme and decorative feel, created through the effect of a paint applied flat on the canvas in a style reminiscent of certain artists of the Polish Poster School. As she once shared: "I want to paint the human being, their destiny, big or small, about the human at play and in the throes of the everyday struggles of modern life, woven through by the loom of cities, highways and advertisements." Paradoxically, the American cultural landscape wasn't so prevalent in her work. Her practice was actually suffused with aspects of so-called metaphorical painting, popular in the 1960s and '70s (particularly on the Krakow scene). Her paintings blended an astonishing mix of objects, which took on new, poetic functions in this unusual context. Female figures standing at the edge of wakefulness and dreams, erotic fantasies intertwined with the everyday, a carefree hippie ambiance. In 1981, Marzec survived a serious car accident. Her health suffered as a result and her condition kept getting worse. Eventually, she had to quit painting at the start of the 1990s. Prior to that rupture, the joie de vivre and enthusiasm that had shone through her earlier paintings were pushed out and replaced with bitter reflections on how out of reach the American dream really was. The grays and browns of these paintings were meant to encourage the viewer to think about the human condition, the fragility of destiny, the feeling of being alone in a crowd, living in one of the greatest metropolises in the world, the mecca of the art world, now acutely aware that only a rare few end up breaking out. At the same time, she grew closer to notions of metaphysics, leading to compositions that hinted at her spiritual pursuits: splits into the realms of sky and earth, a particular way of depicting the human form that resembles monumental works of sacral art. Misshapen figures seem to decompose before our eyes or whirl around in an ecstatic dance, often set against a postapocalyptic urban landscape. In the 1990s, Marzec returned home for good and took up residence in a medium-sized apartment in Krakow. She lived in near isolation, without involving herself in any local or regional initiatives or networks. She was surrounded by the paintings she'd brought back from the United States and all her utensils, but her easel stood empty. The feeling that she'd failed was so strong, she couldn't even bear to pick up the paintbrush. Marzec's story of emigrating from Krakow and working to make a name for herself on the New York art scene spanned two decades. Her painterly style evolved beneath a range of different impulses: the modernist tradition, particularly the work of Pablo Picasso, as well as surrealism and the Polish expressionist guise of the new figuration movement. She devised her own personal lexicon of creative expression, reflecting the dreams, emotions and difficult experiences that shaped who she became and the works she painted. Text: Agnieszka Jankowska-Marzec Translation: Agnes Monod-Gayraud Cooperation: Katarzyna Dróżdż | Museum of Niepołomice The exhibition of paintings by Wanda Marzec at the Leto Gallery is the artist's second show hosted in Poland. The previous show of works that had come about outside of the Polish art circuit had been presented at the Niepołomicki Museum (near Krakow) last March.