Emilia Kina’s practice explores the materiality of painting and its dual nature as both image and object. Her works, often recalling curtains, blinds, and screens, unfold as layered surfaces where visibility and concealment, light and shadow, become tools for reflection on perception itself. Kina is interested in how the gaze operates—oscillating between pleasure and unease—and how painting can function as both a window and a threshold between the real and the imagined. In her recent relief compositions, the artist reinterprets elements of traditional painting through a sculptural approach. By carving and modelling wood, she constructs subtle undulations and cut-outs that rhythm the surface of the work, transforming painting into a spatial, almost kinetic experience. Her refined play of gradients and textures draws attention to the physical beauty of the medium while questioning what remains seen or hidden.

Kina graduated from the Faculty of Painting at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts (Kraków). Her work has been presented at Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw), the Stefan Gierowski Foundation (Warsaw), Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow – MOCAK (Kraków), Gdańsk City Gallery (Gdańsk), Polish Institute (Düsseldorf), Raster Gallery (Warsaw), Grey House Gallery (Kraków), Eve Leibe Gallery (London) and Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery (London), among others.