THE ARTIST
Kasia Clarke
A Polish-born contemporary artist working in the Surrey countryside, just south of London.
THE WORK
Landscapes of the imagination
My paintings begin with a feeling rather than a place. They are imagined landscapes, built through intuitive marks and layers of paint and mixed media.
Having left Poland as a child, I return often to the idea of home: how it feels, what we remember, and where we find a sense of belonging. These questions find their way into the work without becoming literal descriptions.
I am drawn to the scale of a painting that you can become absorbed in. Its meaning remains open, shaped as much by the memories and associations you bring to it as by my own.
IN THE STUDIO
An intuitive approach to materials and making
I don’t plan a painting in advance. I find it through making: building a surface, responding to a mark, letting one layer suggest the next.
The process moves between analysis and instinct, letting go and taking control. Paint and mixed media leave traces of those decisions, even as the image changes.
BACKGROUND
Becoming an artist
In 2003, I left a career in investment banking and returned to college to study studio glass. After several years working in applied art, I moved into painting full-time.
My practice developed through study with artists including Nicholas Wilton and David M Kessler. In 2021, I moved into a larger studio in Surrey, with space to work on the scale I had been drawn towards.
Alongside my own work, I share my innovative and experimental approaches to collage, mark making and layered surfaces through online courses for artists.
Selected exhibitions
Selected highlights, 2009–2024
2024
Summer Show · TAP Galleries, Chelmsford
2023
Solo show · 60 Threadneedle Street, London
Two-person show · The Art Agency
The Other Art Fair · London
Art Surrey · Epsom Downs
2022
Affordable Art Fair · Battersea & Hampstead, London
London Design Fair · with Adventures In Furniture
Fresh Art Fair · Cheltenham
Art United · Loughran Gallery
2021
The Other Art Fair · London
Affordable Art Fair · Battersea, London
Contemporary Art Fairs · Surrey
2020
Contemporary Art Fairs · Surrey
Contemporary Art Fairs · Surrey & Windsor (virtual)
Denbies Wine Estate Art Exhibition
Online auction in aid of The Royal Marsden Hospital
Selected for The Other Art Fair · London (postponed)
2019
Contemporary Art Fairs · Surrey, Newbury & Windsor
New Artists Group Show · No Naked Walls Gallery, Bramley
2018
Contemporary Art Fairs · Windsor
2017
Denbies Wine Estate Art Exhibition
2009–2010
Origin · Somerset House & Spitalfields, London