Born: 1984
Based in: Poznań, Poland
Website: helenaminginowicz.com
Instagram: @santa___helena
Biography
Helena Minginowicz always felt art was her native language. Even as a child, she was drawing and building imaginary worlds—visual expression wasn’t something she learned; it was something she already spoke.
She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture and Design at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts in Poznań in 2011. One of the biggest turning points came much later, when she was named a finalist in the prestigious Bielska Jesień 2023 competition—a breakthrough moment that confirmed she was building something that resonated beyond herself.
Helena’s work is rooted in how we experience the world through personal filters—through emotions, memories, and the distortions that life creates. “Each of us filters reality through personal emotions, experiences, and memories,” she says. “This concept continues to guide my work.”
Today, she’s driven by the urge to capture the fragile, uncertain, and ambiguous. She’s drawn to the tension between what is real and what isn’t, what matters and what is so easily overlooked.
Artistic Practice
Helena works with an airbrush as her primary tool, using it to create soft gradients, delicate transitions, and hyper-precise detail. But just as important as her technique are the materials she chooses: “invisible” everyday objects like paper towels, plastic bags, or beauty masks—things we barely notice, but that carry deep emotional weight when seen differently.
Her style floats between realism and illusion. It’s informed by both classical painting and digital aesthetics—an unusual mix that gives her work a dreamlike tension. Light, texture, and presence are in constant negotiation.
Helena’s recurring themes circle around perception, fragility, transience, and the limits of human sensitivity. She often returns to ordinary objects as subjects—elevating what’s usually left in the shadows—and frequently paints animals, subtle figures that add symbolic layers to the emotional landscape of her work.
Her inspirations are just as layered: the old masters of painting, Italian and Scandinavian cinema, the poetry of Sylvia Plath, magical realism from authors like Julio Cortázar, and the hyperreal world of today’s digital culture.
Notable Works & Exhibitions
Being selected as a finalist for Bielska Jesień 2023 was a key milestone—giving Helena not just recognition, but real momentum.
She’s continued to build an impressive exhibition record, including Disturbing Darlings at Shoreditch Modern in London (2024), Self-Seeders at HOS Gallery in Warsaw (2024), and solo exhibitions like Lies of Summer at Dystans Gallery in Kraków (2023) and Everyday Stories at Gallery M in Wrocław (2023).
Coming up, she will present a major solo show at Galerie Prima in Paris in May 2025—a defining opportunity to dive even deeper into her evolving vision.
Selected Exhibitions
Disturbing Darlings, Shoreditch Modern, London, UK – 2024 Self-Seeders, HOS Gallery, Warsaw, Poland – 2024 Lies of Summer, Dystans Gallery, Kraków, Poland – 2023 Everyday Stories, Gallery M, Wrocław, Poland – 2023 Upcoming Solo Show, Galerie Prima, Paris, France – May 16–June 21, 2025
Links & Press
The Strength of Fragility – Overstandard (Interview, January 2025) Ambiguity and Ephemerality – Metal Magazine (Feature, November 2024) The Visual Mirage of Helena Minginowicz – Collater.al (Profile, September 2024)
Collaborations: Lotna Gallery (Warsaw), Galerie Prima (Paris)
In Her Words
“My work bridges the delicate and the durable, blending fragile, easily damaged, or intentionally disposable materials with the permanence of traditional painting.
I’m drawn to objects designed to be forgotten—paper towels, plastic bags, single-use face masks—because they mirror something in us: the way we can be overlooked or erased by the world around us.
I’m fascinated by what we don’t notice. The graphics, the colors, the quiet beauty hiding in everyday junk.
Through these throwaway materials, I explore the paradox between the values we celebrate—freedom, communication, individuality—and how easily they can slip away.
Whether blending high and low culture, borrowing from Old Master paintings or street art memes, my work lives in that tension between the eternal and the fleeting, the precious and the disposable.”
