Ewa Juszkiewicz

Ewa Juszkiewicz (b. 1984) is a Polish painter whose enigmatic portraits subvert traditional representations of femininity by reimagining the conventions of European portraiture. Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and later Kraków, Juszkiewicz rose to prominence in the 2010s with a distinctive practice that engages critically with art history, particularly the ways in which women have been idealised, anonymised or objectified in Western painting.

Her work centres on meticulous reinterpretations of 18th- and 19th-century portraiture, where elegant female sitters — often based on historical paintings — have their faces obscured or replaced by elaborate arrangements of flora, twisted braids, fabrics or other surreal elements. These interventions do not erase the figure but rather displace the traditional gaze, complicating the viewer’s expectations and drawing attention to the constructed nature of identity, beauty and authorship. In doing so, Juszkiewicz reflects on the erasure of women’s individuality in canonical art and offers a kind of poetic restitution.

Executed with technical precision and a restrained palette, her paintings evoke the polish of Old Masters while asserting a distinctly contemporary voice. Rather than rejecting the past, Juszkiewicz engages it on her own terms, creating works that are at once haunting, seductive and politically astute.

Now recognised internationally, her paintings have been exhibited widely and are held in significant public and private collections.