10 Questions with Krystyna Vinogorodska

Krystyna Vinogorodska is a European artist and a graduate of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. Her work bridges classical training with experimental forms of contemporary art.

Her paintings have been exhibited and recognised across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas, including a showcase on New York City’s Times Square. In 2023, she received the Award of Achievement from the Consulate of Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs in Chania, Greece, in recognition of the exceptional quality and technique of her work.

Krystyna is also the author of the play “The Archive of the Future”, while her interviews have been published in respected art journals. Today, her artworks are part of private and museum collections, reflecting the journey of an artist who intertwines personal mythology with universal questions of memory, time, and identity.

www.vinogorodskaya.com | @vinogorodska_krystyna

ARTIST STATEMENT

In the work of Krystyna Vinogorodska, the world reveals a hidden depth, where colours breathe, and lines whisper like fragments of memory. Her paintings are journeys through silence and light, each detail carrying the shimmer of an inner landscape, the echo of dreams and hopes.

She creates spaces where time dissolves, placing the viewer in a threshold between past and future, between what has been forgotten and what is yet to come. The symbols and forms she brings to the canvas become guides: fragile as petals, yet enduring as stone.

Through painting, Krystyna transforms loss into renewal and fleeting moments into eternity. Her art is an invitation to step into silence, to listen for one’s own voice, and to encounter the reflection of something timeless within the soul.

INTERVIEW

Please introduce yourself to our readers. Who are you, and how did you begin experimenting with images?

I am an artist. I am an adult learning to count to three: one, myself; two, the dialogue with the world and others; three, the wonder that emerges from seeing. Art has always been my guide, like Virgil leading Dante through the dark toward the light.

How would you define yourself as an artist, not only in terms of style but also in purpose and worldview?

I am a librarian of meanings. My paintings do not merely depict; they guide. Silence, music, and secret signs are always present. I do not paint to illustrate ideas; I create space where a person can breathe, reflect, and meet their inner mystery. As Rilke wrote, art should not answer but keep the question alive. My works are doors, not walls.

Adam is waiting for Eve © Krystyna Vinogorodska

Could you describe your creative process? How do you know when a work is ready to leave your inner world and appear on the canvas?

I do not follow discipline in the usual sense; I follow readiness. Sometimes it feels like a musician’s pause before the first note, a silence from which everything emerges. I believe, as Kandinsky did, that every inner movement seeks its colour, line, and shape. My role is to hear this movement and let it speak through the canvas.

In your artistic statement, painting is described as a journey through silence and light. How do you personally experience this journey?

Silence is the loudest sound for me, existing before words. It is charged with anticipation. Light is the breath in which the invisible is revealed. While painting, I enter this pre-verbal space, where reality is soft and malleable, and only there can I touch what is more important than the image, its breath.

You describe your symbols as simultaneously fragile and enduring. Could you share one symbol that feels especially meaningful?

The cube. In it resides both chance and strict order. It reminds us that something is always happening, and we can never predict everything. The cube is both game and destiny. It reflects my series “Game with Time,” where every face offers the chance to rewrite personal pain and replay trauma.

Memory and time are central themes in your art. How do you translate these abstract ideas onto the canvas?

Memory is not a repository of the past; it is the breath connecting yesterday and tomorrow. Every brushstroke moves between what has been and what is about to come. Time, as Levinas wrote, is not a line of clocks but a meeting. The present arises when the gaze of another meets the painting. My art does not fix a moment; it opens a space where one can pause. That pause itself is time.

Your works have been exhibited across continents. How did different cultures respond to your art?

People are present in all cultures, and humanity is universal. In Tokyo, Rome, Doha, or New York, viewers stop before a painting and marvel. In that instant, distinctions vanish; only the meeting remains. As Mark Rothko said, art begins where the viewer is moved to tears. This is the true dialogue, not between cultures, but between hearts.

You also wrote the play “Archive of the Future.” How does writing relate to painting as a form of self-expression?

For me, words are breath that sets the painting in motion. The play animates my canvas symbols, turning them into dialogue, a space where thoughts acquire body and voice. I believe, as Neruda did, that the power of thought can change reality. Painting speaks in colour; drama speaks in pause, voice, and silence.

As a classically trained artist experimenting with contemporary forms, how do you find the balance between tradition and innovation?

During my studies and afterwards, I learned from great masters. They taught me craft, but true art begins when you discover yourself. Some said, “You are doing everything correctly,” others said, “You are more than this.” At some point, Dante’s voice seemed to tell me: “When the choice stands between duty and desire, follow desire.” I followed, and it opened the path to modernity. Tradition is roots; innovation is growth. One cannot exist without the other.

What does the future mean to you in art? Where do you see yourself going next?

I see the future as a new world to be painted, a world where thousands of voices, colours, and meetings participate. If my paintings someday, somewhere, inspire even one person, then nothing has been in vain. And even if I never know this, it does not matter. As Rilke wrote: “The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.” I like to think of my paintings as tiny seeds of this future already living within us.

Artist’s Talk

Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a promotional platform for artists to articulate their vision and engage them with our diverse readership through a published art dialogue. The artists are interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj, the founder & curator of Al-Tiba9, to highlight their artistic careers and introduce them to the international contemporary art scene across our vast network of museums, galleries, art professionals, art dealers, collectors, and art lovers across the globe.

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