Hi, Hello and Welcome!

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My name is Monika Gardyla, and I am a Polish-born artist from Łódź who has somehow split her life between two wildly different worlds: the creative corners of London and a house I built in the jungle of Itacaré, a surf town tucked in tropical Bahia, north of Brazil.

 

My work is as layered as my life. I’m a collage artist, painter, ceramicist, and I work with wood and reclaimed materials. I collect textures, colours, and stories—from vintage book covers and ephemera to hand-painted fragments and jungle finds—and turn them into tactile, abstract compositions that explore balance, contrast, and emotion.

 

Everything I create is intuitive. I never plan too much. I build artworks the same way I built my home: with persistence, curiosity, and a whole lot of improvisation. Whether I’m collaging on canvas, shaping ceramics, or painting large walls, I let the materials guide me.  

I’m drawn to the tension between geometry and organic forms, between control and chaos, between the past and whatever’s next.

 

This flexible and adaptive approach enables me to work across various mediums and spaces—galleries, hotels, homes, and wherever else art can thrive. I’m not afraid of scale, mess, or challenges—just give me the wall, the wood, the clay, and I’ll figure out the rest.