“Night scenes” – Agata Machay

Agata Machay is a Polish artist who has been living and working in France for many years. Having graduated from the Pedagogical Academy of Kraków and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, she has over time developed a painterly language deeply rooted in Expressionism, towards which she was guided by a natural instinct and a constant inner search.

Her passion for art manifested itself from a very young age: it was an art teacher who first recognised her talent and encouraged her to enter numerous international competitions. Agata still recalls with emotion the moment when, at just seven years old, she received second prize at UNESCO — a recognition that marked the beginning of a life entirely devoted to art. After completing her studies at the Pedagogical Academy of Kraków, she moved to Paris to further her practice in painting and screen-printing at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

The artist works in series, turning her attention to the urban landscape, nature, and contemporary society. Her research focuses predominantly on the night-time hours or at dusk, when chromatic nuances reveal the mystery inherent in places. In her nocturnal views, Agata Machay explores the secrets that, in her view, emerge only in darkness: the glimmer of artificial light from the windows of buildings and street lamps reflects off the roads and rivers of the city, enveloping towns and landscapes in an aura of charm and mystery. The artist often interprets the same subject under different lighting conditions, progressively stripping reality of its figurative component until sometimes reaching a fully abstract result, dense with atmosphere.

In her canvases dedicated to landscape, the element of water recurs frequently — water that Agata considers a silent witness to history and the passing of time, a keeper of secrets and memories carried along by the river’s current. For the artist, art cannot be limited to a purely aesthetic function: the role of the artist is comparable to that of a journalist, called upon to recount and denounce the injustices of their time. Her painting draws unconsciously on the reality of contemporary society and, much like the works of Edward Hopper, denounces the solitude of the individual immersed in the modern urban space: an ever-expanding context, yet one incapable of fulfilling the deep emotional needs of the human being. The rarefied atmosphere of her nocturnal landscapes — with cities wrapped in fog and smog, and the reflections of windows shimmering on rivers — evokes in certain respects the works of the Australian artist Clarice Beckett.

The technique employed by Agata Machay is marouflage, a rare and refined painterly practice: the artist paints with acrylic colours on specially prepared sheets of paper, which are subsequently adhered to canvas using a specific method. This process gives the painted surface a matte, reflection-free effect of great elegance.

Recently, the artist took part in the Genoa Biennale, where she received an important international award for her evocative nocturnal water landscapes. In May 2026, she will inaugurate her solo exhibition at the IKonica Art Gallery in Milan, before going on to participate in the eighth edition of Aqvart in Venice and in further international exhibitions.

Curator: Margherita Blonska-Ciardi