Part of her paintings’ distinctive aesthetic is carried over from what served to inspire them: old black-and-white family photos taken primarily during the period from the 1940s to 1960s, although Rzążewska makes a point of stressing that the paintings are not merely copies of the photographs.

She says: “My work is based and inspired by photography, but it does not mean transference or copying the image. It is a certain interpretation, different due to the medium that is being used.”

The choice of old family photographs as inspiration stems from the importance of family in her life.

“This is an intimate subject. The most intimate subject: my family, my ancestors, my grandmother. The photographs capture the world they lived in.”

Following the death of her maternal grandmother in 2013, Rzążewska asked her uncle about old family photographs that she remembered going through during her childhood visits to her grandmother.

She reminisces: “He went to the next room and retrieved a dust-covered handbag from behind the desk, and when I looked at the photos inside I saw ready-made motifs for paintings.”

A follow-up to the series were nine more paintings, collectively titled Sto lat! (literally ‘a hundred years,’ a traditional Polish toast, that could also be translated as ‘Cheers!’). These were inspired by the passing of another close relative, her paternal grandmother.

“These paintings link two polar opposites, depicting scenes of rituals and customs; of initiations, when a woman and a man bind their lots together, that is weddings, and scenes of isolation, that is funerals. Between them, what links them are toasts, a ritual of affirmation, which can be raised for either the living at a wedding or the dead at the wake.”

As with Sceny zatrzymane, the importance of family, this time in the broader context of community, shines through.

“These are scenes from the lives of my grandparents, from their daily lives. Including ceremonies. ‘Scenes captured’ includes a painting titled ‘Wedding Reception’. This is a scene of a big event for the village, for the entire community. And this communal aspect, be it familial or societal, is very important for me.”

The Promoter

Although Rzążewska’s works gained recognition at her college, it was when they were noticed by respected Henryk Dumin, an anthropologist of culture working with the Karkonoskie Museum in Jelenia Góra, that things really took off.

As he himself admits, it was by pure chance, that on the Internet he ran into photographs taken during the exhibition of her Sceny Zatrzymane series of paintings, the same one that earned her bachelor’s and which were displayed in her uncle’s same cottage, back in 2015.

He says: “I reached out to her and I practically declared that I’m in love.”

In Rzążewska’s paintings, Dumin sees what he describes as reconciliation with and even joy at the passage of time.

“These paintings are so true, so natural, as if a kernel of a reality that is long gone was captured and immortalized in them.”

Aside from the choice of the subject, what impressed Dumin about Rzążewska’s paintings are, in his words, “their great sensitivity and restraint, the color palette, the shapes, in which we can find some truth about human existence.”

He says: “It is a documentary record imbued with pictorial beauty, with beautiful eye-capturing moments: of someone laying their hand on a coffin to say goodbye, or a woman caressing the cheek of her beloved.”

But according to Dumin, there is more to the paintings than a mix of Arcadian joy and stark realism. He thinks they show the truth about the complexity of the human condition in which “happiness is not about a state of permanent euphoria, it is about intertwining the bitter and the sweet moments of life, moments of joy and of somber reflection.”

The universal truth Dumin believes is present in Rzążewska’s painting is attested to by the reactions of the people who visited the exhibition.

“In it, they found a piece of themselves, of the histories of their families. [They would say] ‘This resembles my aunt, and this my grandmother. And this is how we used to celebrate’,” he recollects, adding that in spite of the passage of time, some things about humans, such as love between two young people, remain unchanged. Regardless of whether we look at photographs taken yesterday, decades ago, or in centuries past.

He says: “We are not much different from those people. Perhaps we are slightly taller.”

In summary, he says: “I think she is a great artist, an important artist, and one who has something important to convey.”

“An artist [such as Rzążewska], living among the pine groves of her beautiful, tiny, hinterland village, should have an agent who can operate on a national scale,” Dumin said, but humbly added that he helps “just a little bit, as much as I can in my capacity.”

The Village

Rzążewska’s profession as an artist makes her stand out in the small farming community which she chose to make her home and where she set up her workshop.

Nevertheless, she has gained some local recognition. In mid-August, she was asked to serve on the jury to select the most beautiful straw wreath made for the annual harvest festival in the Kłoczew commune, where Kurzelaty is located.

Rzążewska continues her family’s artistic traditions: her late father, Ryszard, was a locally celebrated accordionist performing at many local community events, such as weddings. His artistry and passion for the instrument, passed down through the generations from father to son, is fondly remembered by the locals.

His daughter chose a different form of artistic expression and, while she believes her father was a ‘true’ folk artist, she does not see herself as one.

She says: “I paint the things that awe-inspire me, that resonate with me. There is this inner imperative to transfer something inside me to the canvas. But no. I have the formal education and I can’t ‘unlearn’,” and emphatically adds “I take up folk subjects, but I am not a folk artist.”

The Works

The Sceny zatrzymane series was recently displayed in Nowica, a small village in southern Małopolskie province, which between September 5 and September 7 hosted the 17th iteration of an annual alternative theater festival InNowica.

Sto lat! is displayed as a permanent exhibition at the Krakow University of Economics.

With the support of Henryk Dumin, Rzążewska is now in talks to organize a major exhibition of her work closer to home, in the Lubelskie province where she lives and works.