KATARZYNA BUDKA
Location:
Warsaw, Poland
ARTIST BIO
Katarzyna Budka is a Polish multidisciplinary artist specializing in drawing and printmaking techniques. Born in 1983 in Poland. Graduated Masters with Rector’s honors in 2007 from the Department of Graphic Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland where she studied printmaking and graphic design. Awarded with 1st Prize for the best Diploma at her home university.
Her works have taken part in various art competitions and have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Poland (Warsaw, Katowice, Łódź, Rybnik) and abroad, including São Paulo (Brazil), Taichung (Taiwan), Santander (Spain), Vienna (Austria), Lahti (Finland), Düsseldorf (Germany), Kochi and Tokushima (Japan), Tehran (Iran), and Minsk (Belarus).
In 2015, her drawings were nominated for the “Walter Koschatzky Art Award” and exhibited at Hofstallungen MuseumsQuartier in Vienna. In 2023 and 2025, her graphics from the Labyrinth series received Honorable Mentions at the 6th and 7th Awagami International Mini-Print Exhibition (AIMPE) in Tokushima, Japan. She was awarded 2nd Prize for her digital graphics at the Women United Art Prize 2023 and was selected as a finalist of the award in 2025.
Her work, accompanied by an interview, has been published in international magazines such as Women United Art Magazine, Art Seen Magazine, and Create! Magazine. In 2024, she was also featured in the Emerging Women Artists Award issue.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Each graphic piece I create is the result of a unique creative process that combines traditionally hand-drawn shapes, marks, and textures on paper with digital drawing. This fusion of mediums allows me to bring my inner world vividly to life.
In most of my works you can find wild animals. They act as my alter egos—embodying hidden emotions and serving as storytellers of my most personal and intimate experiences. I create imagined spaces where the natural world and animal life seamlessly intertwine with architecture, forming surreal landscapes that reflect both vulnerability and strength.
If you look closely, you’ll notice hidden signs and symbols embedded within the labyrinthine designs. This visual journey invites viewers to slow down and ask themselves: Do I allow space for the unexpected? For the delicate, the strange, the fleeting—those things that reveal themselves only when we are truly present.
In my graphics, I have built a spiritual refuge: a quiet world I return to when I need stillness and renewal. It is a space to simply be—to breathe, to recharge, to restore mental energy and reconnect with my creative flow. I revisit these places from memory whenever I need to let go of negative thoughts or habits, beginning a process of release and inner balance.
Through my art, I hope to offer others the chance to enter this emotional landscape—to pause, reflect, and perhaps recognize something of themselves within my labyrinth.
