Dimensions: 140 x 100 cm
Signed, dated, and labeled on the reverse: 'Gray Sky | Kiesner | Maria | 2021'
labeled on the stretcher: '140 x 100'
Biography
A graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she received her diploma in 2002 under the supervision of Prof. Jarosław Modzelewski. In 2009, she defended her doctoral dissertation titled “The City Before the Storm” at the Faculty of Art of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, and in 2017, by decision of the Faculty Council of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, she was awarded the degree of habilitated doctor. She has twice been awarded a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2005, 2007), she has been professionally involved in art education—since 2008, she has worked at the College of Art Education at the Maria Grzegorzewska Academy of Special Education in Warsaw. From 2015–2016, she worked as an assistant in the Painting and Drawing Studio led by Prof. Andrzej Bieńkowski and Prof. Łukasz Korolkiewicz at the Faculty of Design of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she also independently led a painting studio in the Department of Fashion. In her work, she paints architecture and urban landscapes, depicting subjects realistically, austerely, 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 work at exhibitions, including the most recent shows: “Liberte, egalite, serigrafite!” at the CSW Znaki Czasu in Toruń (2025), “Found: The Past and Future of Kamionka” at the Museum of Warsaw (2025), “ZOOOM. Personal is Political” at the Arsenał Municipal Gallery in Poznań (2025), the solo exhibition “Maria Kiesner. Modernisms” at Inforbox in Gdynia (2025), and “Pavilions” at the 101 Projekt Gallery in Warsaw (2025). Maria Kiesner’s paintings are included in the collections of major museums, including the Lubuska and Lubelska Zachęta, the Museum of the City of Warsaw, the Vistula River Museum, and the National Museum in Gdańsk.
