Maria Kiesner (b. 1976, Warsaw), "Pavilion," 2024

Biography
Graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she received her diploma under Prof. Jaroslaw Modzelewski in 2002. In 2009, she defended her doctorate under the title "City before the storm" at the Faculty of Art of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, and in 2017, by the decision of the Faculty Council of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, she was awarded a postdoctoral degree. Twice awarded a scholarship by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2005, 2007), she is professionally connected with art education - since 2008 she has been working at the College of Art Education of the Maria Grzegorzewska Academy of Special Education in Warsaw. In 2015-2016, she worked as an assistant in the Painting and Drawing studio of Prof. Andrzej Bieńkowski and Prof. Łukasz Korolkiewicz at the Faculty of Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she also independently led the painting studio in the Fashion Department. In her work, she paints architecture and cityscapes, depicting objects realistically, ascetically and without staffage. She is particularly interested in the forgotten relics of socmodernism and modernism, which she documents in her paintings with exceptional precision and sensitivity to urban heritage. The artist presents her works in exhibitions, including her most recent exhibitions: "Liberte, egalite, serigrafite!" at the CSW Znaki Czasu in Toruń (2025), "Found. Past and Future of Kamionek" at the Museum of Warsaw (2025), "ZOOOM. Personal is Political" at Arsenal City Gallery in Poznań (2025), individual exhibition "Maria Kiesner. Modernisms" at Inforbox in Gdynia (2025) and "Pavilions" at the 101 Projekt Gallery in Warsaw (2025). Maria Kiesner's paintings are in the collections of notable museum institutions, including the Lubuska and Lublin Zachęta galleries, the Museum of the City of Warsaw, the Nadwiślańskie Museum and the National Museum in Gdańsk.