The Women Who Refused To Be Seen: Ewa Juszkiewicz’s Mesmerising Revolt Against The Gaze

In Gdańsk, beneath the soft northern light of Poland’s Baltic coast, a woman sits poised upon a stool. 

Her posture is impeccable. Her dress belongs to another century. She appears ready to be immortalised in paint.

Then Ewa Juszkiewicz steps forward.

Instead of perfecting her subject’s face, the artist gently erases it.

An intricate tower of hair blooms where eyes should be. A cascade of flowers engulfs a forehead. Tree bark unfurls across delicate features. Silk twists into sculptural veils. 

Fungi, fruit and folds of fabric gather with theatrical precision until the woman before her becomes something stranger, richer and infinitely more compelling than a conventional portrait.

The model remains perfectly still, as though this ritual has happened countless times before.

Then the painting begins.

And another of Juszkiewicz’s enigmatic heroines enters art history.

This summer, that quietly radical act arrives in spectacular fashion at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, where the Polish painter’s first-ever solo museum exhibition unfolds until 6 September. 

Featuring more than twenty works spanning 2013 to the present, including several pieces created specifically for the occasion, the exhibition marks a defining moment for one of contemporary painting’s most captivating voices.

For more than a decade, Juszkiewicz has performed an extraordinary sleight of hand. Borrowing the technical brilliance, lighting and painterly discipline of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European portraiture, she recreates the visual language of masters such as Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Alexander Roslin with astonishing fidelity. Then she disrupts it.

The faces disappear.

What remains is a fascinating meditation on beauty, identity and power.

Historically, female portraiture often functioned as social theatre. Clothing, jewellery, posture and expression were carefully orchestrated to communicate status, virtue and family prestige. 

Women frequently appeared not as autonomous individuals but as reflections of wealth, lineage and social expectation. Juszkiewicz understands this history intimately. 

By obscuring the face—the traditional site of recognition, desirability and control—she dismantles centuries of visual convention in a single gesture.

The result is neither destruction nor parody. It is liberation.

Among the exhibition’s highlights are Untitled (after Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun) (2021), where historical elegance collides with unsettling transformation, and the newly unveiled Silk and Musa Leaf (2025), a dazzling example of the artist’s ability to fuse botanical excess with psychological intrigue. 

Across the exhibition, brilliant colour palettes and immaculate brushwork create paintings that feel simultaneously centuries old and startlingly contemporary.

The setting could hardly be more fitting.

The Thyssen-Bornemisza occupies a singular place within Europe’s cultural landscape. Home to one of the world’s most comprehensive private collections turned public treasure, the museum bridges artistic movements from the Renaissance to contemporary practice. 

Beyond preservation, its mission centres on education, critical thinking and cultural dialogue, transforming the institution into a living conversation between historical masterpieces and modern society.

Juszkiewicz enters that conversation with remarkable confidence.

Her rise also speaks to a broader phenomenon reshaping contemporary Polish art. A new generation of Polish artists has mastered the paradox of using impeccable classical techniques to challenge the very traditions they inherited. 

Rather than rejecting art history, they infiltrate it. They borrow its language, then rewrite its meaning.

As global galleries increasingly champion Polish talent, questions inevitably emerge. What happens when regional voices become international stars? The opportunities are undeniable: wider audiences, stronger institutional support and greater cultural visibility. 

Yet rapid market enthusiasm can also create pressure to prioritise novelty over artistic evolution.

Juszkiewicz’s practice appears uniquely equipped to withstand that tension.

Her work possesses something increasingly rare in today’s art market: conceptual depth matched by technical mastery. 

The paintings reward immediate admiration but reveal deeper complexities upon closer inspection. They are visually seductive yet intellectually restless.

This exhibition therefore represents a double triumph.

For the Thyssen-Bornemisza, it reinforces the museum’s reputation as a platform where historical and contemporary narratives collide in meaningful ways. 

For Juszkiewicz, it signals an important transition from market darling to institutional presence—a distinction that often determines whether an artist becomes a lasting cultural figure rather than a fleeting phenomenon.

Perhaps that is why these women linger so powerfully in the imagination.

They refuse to smile.

They refuse to perform.

They refuse to be fully known.

Standing before them in Madrid, one senses not absence but possibility. The missing faces do not conceal identity; they multiply it. 

Every flower, every fold of silk, every impossible structure of hair becomes an invitation to question how women have been seen, remembered and represented throughout history.

And in that exquisite uncertainty lies the irresistible brilliance of Ewa Juszkiewicz.

Catch the exhibition before it closes on 6 September. Some portraits are meant to be admired. These demand to be reconsidered.

For tickets and more details on the exhibition, visit https://www.museothyssen.org/en today. 

*Photos courtesy of El Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.