Sometimes something reaches us before we have a chance to understand it. You don’t plan, you don’t search, you don’t analyze – you just stand in front of something and know it’s your place in the frame. That’s exactly how it was when I went to the vernissage of Aleksandra Dzwonkowska – Shanny Black.
Just a Sunday evening with art: a few steps between paintings, a few cookies eaten, and a few conversations that stayed in my mind a bit longer.
And among all that, I saw this painting.
No calculations, no inner debate.
I simply decided to buy it.
Not because it matched the décor.
I just knew I wanted it in my field of view.
Aleksandra’s painting is titled “There’s a Lady – Pickguard.” Oil, color, mixed technique, a wooden form in the shape of a Stratocaster guitar pickguard.
A technical description on paper, but in reality – living music in color.
I don’t know if it’s the shape or the palette, but there’s something paradoxical about it. Because if I were to go by the statistics of my moods, I’d bet on something in shades of gray and black.
And yet I bought a palette of colors that can brighten even the quietest moment of the day.
Aleksandra Dzwonkowska is an artist of a rare kind – unpretentious.
She doesn’t flaunt artistic seriousness or build distance. She carries calm, modesty, and authenticity – qualities that today, in a world of loud images and even louder people, have become the rarest form of art. Because being humble is not a pose or a branding strategy. It’s the natural state of those who don’t need applause to know they’re doing something real.
Today this painting hangs in my home.
It needs no signature or interpretation.
It simply is.
My interior designer friend will say it doesn’t match anything – and maybe that’s the point.
Because sometimes what stands out the most doesn’t disturb harmony.
It simply reminds us that consistency is an overrated category.
And maybe, in art as in life, it’s all about letting something finally reach us.