Agnieszka arrived in Toronto, Canada at the age of 18. She developed a portfolio of drawings, paintings and black -and-white photography and got accepted into the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1994. Her imagination and creativity simply blossomed in OCAD’s stimulating environment as she’s taken an interdisciplinary approach to learning and studied such varied disciplines as figure drawing, sculpture / installation, textile / fibre arts, ceramics, metal smithing, photography and art history. Agnieszka graduated from OCAD in 1998 with a Medal of Excellence and a number of scholarships and awards.

Since 1999, together with her husband,Jacek Rudnicki, also a painter, she’s maintained an art studio in a northern part of Toronto, focussing exclusively on full time painting practice. Agnieszka works within the genre of abstract painting, as she finds the non-verbal, image-free communication with the viewer / observer most challenging and most satisfying. Her most influential painters belong to the New York School of Abstract Expressionism, particularly Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell, but so does a reclusive and minimalist Agnes Martin, experimental Gerhard Richter, as well as Quebec’s Automatistes group of painters.

“I tend to work intuitively, passionately and truthfully. I allow the painting to lead me into a unknown direction, I allow myself to get lost in it, to fight with it, to find myself through it . Every single time the process of searching and finding is genuine and uncompromising, often it is emotionally and physically exhausting.

I build a painting through many layers, which in a way reflects my philosophy for life: we all are an accumulation of layers of experiences, passing through the materials of our bodies. Sometimes I disturb the surface of the painting, scratching, rubbing, destroying and revealing what’s hidden underneath, as happens in life, too. In a way my paintings are a metaphor for life itself.

I take my concentration, intensity and strength to create from the disciplines of yoga, shotokan karate and lately shodo ( Japanese calligraphy ), as I believe that the path to creative growth leads through sustained and relaxed concentration and a calm mind. Shodo teaches me the importance of visual thinking and mental training, where a sense of rhythm and emotional expression as well as technique are of essence. Shotokan karate and yoga calm my mind and help me develop inner discipline, which in turn allows me to push the boundaries of my paintings towards yet unchartered territories of expression and form.”

Agnieszka’s paintings appear in private collections across North America and she has gallery representation in Toronto, Edmonton, Victoria and Quebec City.