Iwona Siwek-Front

Bold art shaped by the urban ready-made, marked by rebellion, freedom and sense of joy.

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She describes her practice as "visual journalism," using overheard stories, texts on walls, and urban gestures as ready-mades. Her vivid, contrast-driven works offer bold commentaries on urban life and social conditions.

Born in 1967 to an artist family, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, completing a PhD in 2009 on the semiosphere and the circulation of signs in public space.

She exhibits widely in Poland and internationally, including the Polish–Mexican exhibition La Vida Es Sueño (Culiacán, 2024) and her solo show Animal Traces. Monsters There (2025). She also participated in a major exhibition on women's emancipation at the Museum of Krakow.

Her work reflects an interdisciplinary artistic and scholarly approach, making it the subject of academic research, including The Artist in Urban Space. Her pieces are held in the Museum of Kraków, XYLON Switzerland, Museum Bergkamen, Galleri Ofoten in Narvik, and private collections worldwide. She collaborates regularly with the Museum of Kraków and serves on the board of the Palace of Fine Arts.

“ My work is rooted in urban life and the constant circulation of words, signs, and gestures. I collect short, sharp phrases overheard on the streets, in trams and bars, alongside fragments of media and slogans written on the city’s walls.

Text and language often become integral visual elements in my compositions. My practice forms a portrait of people and a close, attentive observation of contemporary society in constant transformation.

I work across drawing, painting, mural, comics, and animation. Each piece is a direct and honest note shaped by observation. I always carry a sketchbook and record what I see.

I am building a portrait of a society pulled between desire, rebellion, and the pressure to conform to imposed norms. I focus on the moment when personal freedom collides with social rules and expectations. A free individual is, by nature, disobedient, timeless, and beyond reputation.

My works shift between vivid, hedonistic colour and raw, restrained realism, reflecting different tensions within the same reality.

Each piece is signed with the exact date, time, and temperature. It becomes a document of the moment it was made.”

Siwek-Front's artistic practice is deeply rooted in research. Her doctoral project, "Semiosfera mojego Miasta. Notatki" (2009), was based on empirical documentation of Kraków's urban tissue through photographs, recorded conversations and field notes collected in trams, taxis, cafés and public spaces. These materials became the foundation for paintings, drawings and animated films interpreting the city with humour, sensitivity and anthropological insight. Her animated works feature the voices of Kraków actors and form an interdisciplinary dialogue between visual art, sound and urban storytelling.

Institutional Exhibitions & Projects

Baba Lukrowana

A Cultural Alter Ego

The character of Baba Lukrowana was born in 2013 in the Vis-à-Vis café in Kraków.The first images were spontaneously made with a pen on small pieces of paper at the bar. Baba is a synthetic figure shaped by traits of independent women I have been observing and recording for nearly twenty years, across series such as Liberated Women, Botox will not get you into paradise and Kraków Courtesans. She functions as an alter ego, a figure that moves beyond social conventions, indifferent to time and reputation. Baba is both a free spirit and a mirror of the local community. Through Baba, I create a space of freedom. She allows me to speak openly, to express thoughts that may be uncomfortable or controversial, and to smuggle in what might otherwise remain unspoken. She is strong, and I can stand behind her. She protects me! In 2014, I created a four-metre-long comic as a record of this community, based on real conversations overheard in the bar and documented over the year through notes and small sketches. The comics with Baba's figure as the "Front Scroll" and the "Roll of Truth" are drawn documents of a specific place, its language, and its social nuances, forming a layered portrait of Kraków and its inhabitants.

Press & Media

Siwek-Front transforms urban observation into a vivid mythology of contemporary femininity.

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Baba with a Dragonfly

From the collection: Gardens of Paradise

Iwona Siwek-Front

Institutional Exhibitions & Projects

PAŁAC SZTUKI

INSTITUTO SINALOENSE DE CULTURA

MUZEUM KRAKOWA

Baba Lukrowana

Press & Media

Baba with a Dragonfly

Mechanical Compounds

Gust of Changes

Escape

Liberated Women

Krakow Courtesans

Monstrosities

Mary, Our Lady of All Distance

Chthonic old man

Revolution

Life is a Dream

Greek myths

Portraits

Illusion

War

The Radioactive Gossipers

Semiosphere

Comedians

Life

Birth

The last Klezmer

Zebu from Madagascar

Baba temporarily conflicted

Collage

Art Teaches Us How to Understand Life

I Have No Boss Over Me

I Feel Too Confined Here

Sketches

Cats

Miss Quarantine

My Dog Picasso Feels Spring

Bird

Baba with a Dragonfly

Mechanical Compounds

Gust of Changes

Escape

Liberated Women

Krakow Courtesans

Monstrosities

Mary, Our Lady of All Distance

Chthonic old man

Revolution

Life is a Dream

Greek myths

Portraits

Illusion

War

The Radioactive Gossipers

Semiosphere

Comedians

Life

Birth

The last Klezmer

Zebu from Madagascar

Baba temporarily conflicted

Collage

Art Teaches Us How to Understand Life

I Have No Boss Over Me

I Feel Too Confined Here

Sketches

Cats

Miss Quarantine

My Dog Picasso Feels Spring

Bird

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Iwona Siwek-Front

Background

Artist Statement

Urban Research & Doctoral Foundation

Institutional Exhibitions & Projects

PAŁAC SZTUKI

INSTITUTO SINALOENSE DE CULTURA

MUZEUM KRAKOWA