COMING UP: Dear Grey City
A solo exhibition of paintings by Martyna Zoltaszek
Dear Grey City is Zoltaszek’s love letter to her experience of growing up in Eastern Europe during the 80s and 90s, where drab long winters and concrete architecture formed the backdrop to a family home filled with trinkets, beautiful objects and books.
The show explores Zoltaszek’s habitual search for beauty in everyday objects and showcases her weaving of souvenirs from imagined worlds into the mundane, through artworks brimming with colour and life.
ABOUT:
Martyna Zoltaszek is a Polish-born painter based in the UK, holding an MA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław and a scholarship residency at the Art Faculty of the University of Tennessee, USA. The vastly different approaches of these institutions have provided Martyna with the framework for her current artistic practice.
Martyna’s works feature in collections across continents, and she has exhibited in the UK, numerous countries across continental Europe, the USA, and Australia. She has collaborated with brands such as Nina Ricci, Djeco, and the BBC, and her imagery can be found in museum shops across the UK — including Kew Gardens and Anthropologie, among others.
For the past ten years, Zoltaszek has worked from Jamaica Street Studios in Bristol. She has contributed to the institution’s social outreach programme as well as its successful bid to raise funds for community ownership in the face of imminent closure.
BIO:
Martyna Zoltaszek (b.1980) currently lives and works in Bristol, UK
Zoltaszek recently returned to painting after a 8 year long hiatus focusing on motherhood. 2024 – 2025 saw her build a new body of work that culminated in a solo show ‘Dear Grey City’ in Bristol’s Kit Form.
Solo exhibitions include: Wild Tales PAPER Gallery (2016), Bristol, UK; Welcome To The Jungle King’s Land Gallery, London, UK (2012); This Treasure I Bring To You National Gallery of Modern Art BWA, Ostrow Wielkopolski, Poland (2008); And Then There Was Rainbow The Bloxham Gallery, London, UK (2007), Residency Show 1010 Gallery, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA (2006), Weaving Stories POSK Polish Centre, London, UK (2005); Zawsze Bajka National Gallery BWA Awangarda, Wroclaw, Poland (2004)
Group exhibitions include: Wild Grant Bradley Gallery, Bristol, UK (2016); 2015 – Side By SideLAB SPACE Bristol, UK (2015), Annual Open Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK (2014), Point 35, Store Street Gallery, London, UK (2013); Viva Colour, The Watling Galleries, Brisbane, Australia (2008), Rabbit & House Arka Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania (2006); Egeria XVI Painting Biennial, Ostrow Wielkopolski, Poland (2006); Granice Obrazu, Entropia Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland (2004)
