Aleksandra Waliszewska, untitled, 2013, gouache on paper, 24,7 × 34,7 cm Image
Step into the unsettling, dreamlike worlds of Aleksandra Waliszewska, a contemporary Polish painter whose work explores the shadowy depths of the human psyche. Her haunting, surreal compositions blend grotesque figures, ethereal landscapes, and symbolic motifs to evoke feelings of unease, introspection, and raw emotion.
Aleksandra Waliszewska, untitled, 2020, watercolor and gouache on paper, 30,9 × 22,9 cm. Image via https://waliszewska.artmuseum.pl/en/wystawa
Aleksandra Waliszewska, Untitled, 1997-2022, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland. Culture.pl. image Detail via.
Untitled | 2011 Gouache on Paper Image via
Video via https://culture.pl/en/artist/aleksandra-waliszewska
Who is Aleksandra Waliszewska
Aleksandra Waliszewska was born in Warsaw in 1976 and remains based there. ([Wikipedia][1]) She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, continuing a family legacy — she comes from four generations of women artists: a mother and grandmother who worked as sculptors and a great‑grandmother who was a published fairy‑tale author. ([waliszewska.artmuseum.pl][2]) From an early age, she was steeped in storytelling through images — a heritage that shaped her unique visual language. ([waliszewska.artmuseum.pl][2])
Theodor Kittelsen. The Water Sprite. 1904. Ink, watercolour, pencil and crayon on paper. The National Museum in Oslo. Image
Unamed, Monster Brains
Rather than following contemporary trends or digital media, Waliszewska opts for classical — even intimate — media: painting, gouache and drawings on paper. ([Culture.pl][3])
Her style has been described as Gothic, surreal, symbolic — often gruesome, often unsettling — blending horror, folklore, myth, and deeply human themes. ([Wikipedia][1])
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Aleksandra Waliszewska,
Untitled [Way], 2012-2014 Image via
Aleksandra Waliszewska, | Untitled, 2012-2014
Mixed media on carton 13 4/5 × 9 4/5 in | 35 × 25 cm Image via
Thematic Universe & Artistic Voice
Waliszewska’s work draws heavily from Eastern European folklore, pagan mythologies, and the symbolic visual heritage of the late‑19th / early‑20th‑century “Symbolist” tradition. ([waliszewska.artmuseum.pl][2])
Her canvases are often populated with spectral beings, hybrid human‑animal monsters, vampires (often drawing on the Slavic “upiór”), witches or mermaids, ghostly maidens, and anthropomorphic cats. These figures roam through landscapes of swamps, murky forests, decaying architectures, and liminal spaces that evoke existential dread, mythic horror, and primal emotion. ([artmuseum.pl][4])
Bez tytułu (Untitled; 2012–2013) Image Via Wikipedia
Untitled, Image via
Common themes include mortality, decay, suffering, transformation, sexuality and violence — but also subversion: innocence twisted into horror; vulnerability turned into power; mythic archetypes re‑imagined with modern anxiety and darkness. ([Culture.pl][3])
Her work doesn’t shy away from the grotesque or the unsettling; yet there’s often beauty, poetry, and strange melancholic introspection beneath the horror — a tension that draws in viewers and resonates with those attuned to dark fantasy, gothic horror, or symbolic surrealism. ([Culture.pl][3])
In her own words, some of her pieces are
“perverse fairy‑tales, where idyllic childhood becomes haunted, innocence merges with monstrousness.”
Waliszewska has become one of the most prominent contemporary dark‑fantasy / gothic artists out of Poland, often bridging the gap between “high art” and subculture / underground / alternative art scenes — giving her work a broad audience beyond traditional gallery visitors. ([artmuseum.pl][4])
Her works have been used in album covers, illustrated books, and collaborated with musicians, writers, and other artists — showing her crossover appeal to pop‑culture, music, and alternative art audiences. ([artmuseum.pl][4])
Aleksandra Waliszewska, Image via
Aleksandra Waliszewska, untitled, 2018, gouache on paper, 42 × 29,5 cm
Nasty Children Series, image via
Aleksandra Waliszewska, | Untitled (Portrait with Hand), 2015
Mixed media on cardboard 9 4/5 in diameter | 25 cm diameter Image via
In 2022, a landmark exhibition titled The Dark Arts: Aleksandra Waliszewska and Symbolism from the East and North took place in the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, presenting over 130 of her works (some never before shown) in a historical/artistic context alongside other Eastern‑European Symbolist artists — cementing her place not only as a “gothic‑fantasy” artist but as an important figure linking contemporary art with Eastern‑European art heritage. ([artmuseum.pl][5]) The exhibition reframed her art as part of a broader symbolic lineage — mining myth, folklore, collective trauma, and the anxieties of our age through a prism of horror, memory, and fairy‑tale grotesquerie. ([artmuseum.pl][4])
Aleksandra Waliszewska, bez tytułu, 2018, gwasz na papierze, 24,7 × 34,7 cm
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandra_Waliszewska"Aleksandra Waliszewska"
[2]: https://waliszewska.artmuseum.pl/en/wystawa "The Dark Arts – Exhibition in the Museum of Moder Art in Warsaw"
[3]: https://culture.pl/en/artist/aleksandra-waliszewska "Aleksandra Waliszewska - Biography | Artist | Culture.pl"
[4]: https://artmuseum.pl/en/exhibitions/wystawa-dark-arts-1 "The Dark Arts: Aleksandra Waliszewska and Symbolism from the East and North"
[5]: https://artmuseum.pl/en/exhibitions/opowiesci-okrutne-2-1 "The Dark Arts: Aleksandra Waliszewska and Symbolism from the East and North"
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