Gosha Karpowicz (b. 1960) is an abstract painter based in New York City whose work explores the richness of color, truth and beauty, life and death, and the human experience.
Born in a small, semi-rural town just outside of Warsaw, Gosha spent much of her youth exploring deep forests and fields. She studied bees, flowers and other forms nature. Her exploration was encouraged by her father, a professor of agriculture. Her mother was an art teacher.
At school, Gosha immersed herself in philosophy, biology and chemistry. One day, while strolling in a meadow, she was so moved by contrasting cool and warm reds that she painted the scene. She decided that she wanted to paint the world.
Gosha studied art at the academy of fine arts in Warsaw, but felt limited in her academic training by restrictions on Western-style art that was prohibited in Poland, part of the communist bloc at the time.
It wasn’t until visited London and Paris, where she was brought to tears by paintings from J.M.W. Turner and Vincent Van Gogh that she realized how inadequate her training was.
Gosha decided to continue her studies in New York. She received a scholarship to study at Parsons, and arrived to the United States in 1981 as a political refugee. Since then, she learned English, became an American citizen, raised a family and has had a successful career as an art teacher and professional artist.
“I grew up in a world where the forest shimmered in endless variations of green and yellow and hues I still can’t name, the soil seemed to turn from black to brown to something like blue as it dribbled from my hand and where the sky bled purple at dusk. In Poland, though, behind the Iron Curtain, art meant black and white reproductions, washed out grays and “social realism,” art that didn’t seem to be much of either. Drenched in it in life, deprived of it in art, I have become consumed by color in my work. I want the colors I use to breathe and pulse, to transform spaces between them, to illuminate light and darkness behind them.
In a world where stillness is rare, my paintings rely on the moments of quietude.”
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