Hanna Zawa-Cywińska (b. 1939), "Gate to Haven," 1989

Acrylic, freehand technique/canvas
Dimensions: 76 x 101 cm
signed, dated and described on the reverse: 'HANNA ZAWA | GATE TO HAVEN 1989 | ACRYL 30" x 40" '

Biography
She studied journalism at the UW from 1963 to 1965 and left Poland for the US in 1967. She studied advertising at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and graphic design at the State University of New York at Purchase, where she received a degree in advertising in 1981. She has exhibited individually and in many group shows in the United States, Japan, Brazil and Europe since 1983. In 1987 she had her first exhibition in Warsaw. In the 1980s, she joined the circle of artists exploring the problem of geometry in art, centered around Bożena Kowalska. At the same time, she belonged to the circle of artists associated with Gerard Blum-Kwiatkowski, and participated in group exhibitions organized by him. In 1991, she took part in the exhibition "We are" in Warsaw, and since then dates her constant presence in Polish artistic life. From 1994 to 2004 she stayed in Switzerland, and since 2004 she has been living in Warsaw. Her art represents the current of geometric abstraction, which the artist saturates with symbolic elements and peculiar emblematics. She devotes a lot of attention to the purely sensual qualities of her works, their colors, texture and the materials used, often non-standard (such as sand, various substrates, binders, etc.).