Monika Marchewka: Cover Artist “The Power Of She”

Monika Marchewka lends her deeply poetic visual language to the cover of The Power of She, setting the emotional tone for one of the most meaningful artistic collaborations of the year. With a style that is both ethereal and intimate, Monika’s artwork captures the quiet strength, mystery, and layered beauty of womanhood—perfectly embodying the spirit of the book.

The Power of She is a result of a global open call hosted by the Women in Arts Network and brought to life through the Arts to Hearts Project. This elegant hardcover publication brings together the work of 50 inspiring women artists from around the world. Each artist is spotlighted on two full pages offering space not just for their work, but for their voice, their identity, and their journey.

Every page of The Power of She is carefully curated to reflect the emotional spectrum of womanhood from vulnerability and softness to power and rebellion. Themes of identity, heritage, body, memory, motherhood, and self-expression weave through the book like a quiet thread, binding together a community of creators who, despite their different backgrounds and mediums, are united by one truth: the act of creating as a form of resistance and healing. Crafted with premium materials and printed on high-quality paper, The Power of She is a piece of art and a movement in pages. It’s a space where women claim their narratives, where their brushstrokes, lines, and compositions are given the reverence they deserve.

Monika Marchewka’s cover is the perfect prologue to this journey. Known for her emotionally textured portraits of feminine solitude and symbolism, she captures the internal landscapes of women in a way that is both deeply personal and universally resonant.

Who is Monika Marchewka?

Monika Marchewka is a contemporary Polish painter known for her ethereal, surreal, and emotionally charged paintings. Born in 1988 in Chrzanów, a small town in southern Poland, Monika grew up surrounded by the woods, lakes, and soft melancholy of nature elements that continue to breathe through her work to this day. Her art balances the surreal and the familiar, the soft and the unsettling.

Known for her feminine subjects suspended in pastel worlds, Monika creates visual poetry that explores identity, memory, and emotional complexity. Her women don’t pose; they exist. With calm eyes, drooping shoulders, or slightly tilted heads, they speak to every woman who’s ever felt too much or not enough.

Her figures often appear caught between dream and wakefulness, wrapped in silence, floating among metaphors clouds, pearls, birds, mirrors, and flowers. And though they seem delicate, they are never weak. Monika Marchewka’s art is quiet, but it has weight.

Monica Marchewka’s Early Life and Education

Monika Marchewka studied at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where she graduated in 2013 with a degree in painting. But her creative journey didn’t start or end in academia. She began her career in the world of animation, working as a painting supervisor for some of the most ambitious animated films in history. Her work on “Loving Vincent”, the world’s first fully hand-painted film, and the recent animated feature “The Peasants” allowed her to merge traditional artistry with storytelling.

Working in these massive projects honed her patience, detail, and visual rhythm skills that now echo in her paintings. But despite her success in animation, Monika Marchewka’s working in these massive projects honed her patience, detail, and visual rhythm—skills that now echo in her paintings.

Themes and Inspirations

Monika Marchewka’s work is femininity not the glossy kind we see in advertisements, but a lived, breathing femininity. Her women are tired, ethereal, dream-filled, cracked open by feeling. They carry weight. They carry stillness.

Nature plays a significant role too. Born close to forests and lakes, Monika speaks a language of watery reflections, soft skies, and ghost-like plant life. You’ll find shells, waves, fog, and mirrors in her piece’s symbols that drift between the real and the imagined. They reference folklore and personal myth, the kind of truths we know but cannot always say. She once said,

“I like to imagine my paintings as scenes from a film. There’s always wind, there’s always something about to happen.”

And you feel that. Each of her works exists in that suspended breath just before a shift, as though the subject might blink, turn, or speak but chooses instead to remain. This “pause before movement” is where the magic of Monika Marchewka’s work lives. It’s a fragile space, filled with melancholy, tension, and quiet promise.

Monika Marchewka ‘s Creative Process

Monika Marchewka doesn’t approach painting with a rigid plan or fixed outcome in mind. For her, creating is a deeply intuitive act, a conversation between emotion, memory, and the canvas. There’s no blueprint, no storyboard only a feeling that quietly emerges and begins to shape itself into colour, form, and atmosphere. Sometimes it starts with the trace of a colour in her mind, other times a fleeting gesture or the echo of a memory. From there, the image unfolds organically, slowly, almost meditatively.

One of the defining traits of her work is her embrace of imperfection. She frequently leaves parts of the canvas bare, allowing space to breathe and inviting the viewer to pause. This contrast between the finished and the unfinished gives her art its quiet intimacy.

Her background in hand-painted animation has also influenced her style. ach painting she creates carries the emotional cadence of a film still, frozen in a moment that feels suspended, cinematic, and full of story. Rather than painting scenes, Monika paints states of being. She doesn’t simply create images, she creates atmospheres. Her canvas becomes a world in which time slows, emotion gathers, and stories unfold not through narrative but through sensation. There is something deeply human, even tender, about her process. It’s as if she isn’t trying to show us something, but to let us feel something with her quietly, honestly, and in our own time.

Exhibitions

Monika Marchewka’s work has steadily gained international attention in recent years and with good reason. Her deeply emotional and symbol-rich paintings have struck a chord with audiences and curators around the world. From quiet, introspective solo showcases to bold, collaborative group shows, Monika’s presence continues to expand as she brings her unique visual language to the global stage. Some of her most notable exhibitions include:

• 2025 – To Tips of The Rabbit’s Fur, group show, 11 Contemporary Art, Shenzhen, China
• 2024 – In Between, solo show, Monti8, Latina, Italy
• 2024 – Whispers of Shared Melodies, duo show, Artistellar Gallery, London
• 2024 – Quintessence, group show, Maia Contemporary, Mexico City
• 2024 – Soft Glistening Lights, duo show, Hiro Hiro, Taipei, Taiwan
• 2024 – Sweet Memories, group show, Monti8, Italy
• 2023 – High Maintenance, group show, Tchotchke Gallery, New York
• 2023 – Inaugural Salon Group Exhibition, Salon21, New York
• 2022 – In The Dawn, solo show, Artistellar Gallery, London
• 2022 – The Return of the Goddess, group show, Elektra Gallery, Warsaw

These are just some of Monika Marchewka’s many exhibitions that span across Europe, Asia, and the U.S., reflecting her growing global presence and recognition in the contemporary art world. From intimate solo shows to dynamic group exhibitions, each opportunity showcases her unique ability to create deeply emotional, symbolic, and immersive work that resonates with diverse audiences.

Achievements and Recognitions

Monika Marchewka has earned growing recognition for her distinctive contributions to both the fine art and animation worlds. As a painting supervisor, she played a vital creative role in the Oscar-nominated film Loving Vincent and the 2023 animated feature The Peasants—both known for their hand-painted frames and visual storytelling. Her painterly sensitivity brought emotional depth and nuance to each scene, bridging the gap between traditional art and cinematic expression. Beyond film, Monika’s work has also made its mark in the art market.

Her pieces have been sold through respected venues such as the Sopocki Auction House, where they’ve garnered strong prices and attracted a growing collector base across Europe. Her emotionally layered, dreamlike imagery continues to resonate with audiences and critics alike. Curators have praised her ability to blend surrealism with tenderness, positioning her as one of the most emotionally compelling figurative painters of her generation.

What Lies Ahead for Monika Marchewka?

Monika Marchewka’s journey is just beginning to unfold in new and meaningful directions. She isn’t driven by perfection or permanence, but by a quiet trust in the natural rhythm of her creative voice. It grows slowly, intuitively shaped by curiosity, emotion, and a deep inner knowing. Always exploring, always evolving, Monika is gently leaning further into symbolism, stillness, and the emotional weight of her subjects.

There’s something deeply grounding about the way she approaches her work. She moves with intention, not urgency choosing meaning over momentum. As she steps into the next chapter of her path, one thing remains clear: her work will continue to resonate in the spaces words can’t reach. It lingers, it listens, and it reminds us that the most powerful art isn’t always the loudest, it’s the kind that stays with us.