SYLWIA SYNAK
Visual Artist · Artistic Researcher · Educator
Painting · Spatial Practice · Site-Specific Art
BEYOND THE CANVAS
Painting in space, architecture, landscape and human encounter.
Artist Profile
Sylwia Synak is a Polish visual artist based in Paris. Painting is at the centre of her practice — both as an artwork in its own right and as the starting point for works that extend into space, architecture and landscape. She explores how light, colour, material and human encounters change our perception of a place.
Her paintings are built through layers, transitions and atmospheric depth. As the light or the viewing angle changes, different relationships between colours and surfaces emerge. Human presence arises through the encounter with the work: approaching it, spending time with it, moving through the space and bringing one’s own perception to it.
Since 2014, Synak has developed an independent artistic practice encompassing original paintings, large-scale works and site-specific concepts. Her experience placing art in healthcare facilities, hotels, workplaces and private collections provides a foundation for her current research at the intersection of painting, architecture and landscape.
Artist Statement
How can painting move beyond the canvas and become an experience of space? This question connects my work even as its scale, material and location change.
Light and presence are central to my painting. I am interested in how layers of colour, material and changing light transform a surface — and how differently people can experience the same work. For me, presence lies in that encounter. It emerges when someone pauses, approaches a work or changes their point of view.
My research focuses on the space between an artwork and its surroundings. What happens when painting meets a wall, an architectural structure or a public place? How does a work change our perception of that place? And how do its light, materials, history and use shape the work in return? I begin by observing closely. I develop the form of a work from the particular conditions of its site.
These questions also lead me beyond architecture. In my current site-specific concepts, I engage with landscape, water and natural change. Light, reflection, weather, vegetation and time can all contribute to a work’s appearance. I am interested in the possibility of a painting with no single final state, where change becomes part of the work itself.
Whether on canvas, within a building or in a landscape, I seek a form that responds to the character of a place and shifts something in our perception of it. A familiar space may suddenly feel quieter, more open or more layered. For me, this is the potential of art in public space: to reach people who are not necessarily looking for art, but encounter it in the course of everyday life.
Biography and Artistic Practice
Sylwia Synak was born in Gdynia, Poland. From 1999 to 2005, she studied communication design with a focus on fine art painting at Munich University of Applied Sciences. She also studied sociology at the University of Wrocław from 1999 to 2004, focusing on communication and market research. The combination of visual practice and an interest in human perception continues to shape her artistic research.
After working in graphic design, mural painting and interior design, she established her independent artistic practice in 2014. She lived and worked in Munich from 2000 to 2025 and has been based in Paris since 2026.
Working periods, projects and collaborations have taken her to Dubai, New York, Barcelona, Tokyo, Monaco and Morocco, as well as Paris, Munich and Salzburg. Her art has also been presented in Málaga. Working across different cultural and spatial contexts has sharpened her attention to light, material, architecture and the particular atmosphere of a place. She collaborates with galleries, interior designers, cultural institutions, and private and institutional clients.
Her professional practice includes a six-month presentation of her paintings at Munich Airport, work for Hotel Das Tegernsee, projects in international hospitality settings in Dubai and a private chalet project in Austria. For a medical facility of approximately 500 square metres, she developed a comprehensive art concept comprising around 100 works. Projects of this scale call for an understanding of the space as a whole: how it is used, how people move through it and how individual works relate to one another.
Long-standing relationships with collectors are also part of her practice. A private collection in Tyrol comprises around 100 of her works; other collections in Germany include several dozen works each. These collections trace the development of Synak’s visual language over many years while revealing a recognisable artistic identity.
Today, she brings this experience to research that carries painting into architecture, public space and landscape. Each new project begins with a close reading of its site and the question of what form the work might take there.
Represented by:
Singulart, Paris, France
Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
Ina Dederer Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland & Monaco
Karin Wimmer contemporary art, Munich, Germany
Sophisticated-Art Gallery, Munich, Germany
Gallery Achtzig, Berlin, Germany
Experts about Sylwia Synak:
1. Ralf Dellert Gallery Sophisticated Munich
“Overall, we are dealing with a still young, but already “complete” artist who has learned her craft in a professional, profound manner and has noticeably mastered it. So I wish you joy, fun and enjoyment of this art, which I believe is inspiring in many ways.”
The art historians agree: really good informal art can open us up, expand us, “unlock us.” It offers us possibilities that go far beyond the power of language.
Look at the cover picture “Angel Showing”, here you will find everything that informal art needs: depth, plasticity, openness, a successful play of colors and the associated aesthetic feeling, craftsmanship, painterly know-how, so that the eyes enjoying, wondering, wandering across the picture surface and triggering different associations in each of us.
Apparently similar in subject matter, “Breaking The Darkness” triggers completely different feelings in the viewer. The amazement remains. These works offer us what Tolstoy achieved with language and recommends to us again and again in his works: the momentary immersion into a relaxing self-forgetfulness, from which one expands, opens up, emerges with new courage.
Informel became known in the 1950s primarily through all-over painting. This refers to an extensive, non-objective painting without a main motif, which sometimes extends beyond the edge and partially continues on the frame. Sylwia Synak's works fall into this category
We all know: Although money and matter play an undeniably important role in some places in our lives, on the other hand, the most important needs that we carry within us are neither tangible nor for sale: friendship, happiness, (self-)confidence, love , being carried and held, confidence, sensuality, desire, longing, hope, humor. This list could be extended indefinitely. This is where the Informal comes in, and this is also where Ms. Synak cleverly focuses: This painting does not require any objects.
2. Contemporary Art Dr. Karin Wimmer Munich:
In her abstract compositions, Sylwia Synak creates a counterpoint to the stimulating present. In her works, the artist tries to reproduce the impressions and mental states of everyday life. Associations with wide horizons and the memory of the lightness of being are released. The materials used have a strong connection to nature and therefore evoke memories of surfaces from nature, such as the earth's surface or are reminiscent of different bodies of water.
Sylwia Synak presents works that invite you to pause. She works not only with colorful acrylic paints, but also with high-quality natural materials such as: gold pigments, gold leaf, marsh lime, marble powder, natural pigments, inks and different types of sand.
3. Art expert: Christina Hooge, Berlin:
The work of the Munich-based artist Sylwia Synak opens up an associative world that is formed into complex sensory experiences through the form of perception of seeing. The approach to her objects grows out of her Understanding of design. Sylwia Synak studied communication design and art in Munich. These movement spaces not only reveal creative levels, but also train the eye for details. The resulting charisma of a work is reflected in different facets of her work. These are special techniques that produce, among other things, acrylic pictures, limestone nature paintings and mixed media with different materials, such as gold objects. The artist finds her inspiration both in the dynamics of everyday life and in nature, which she transforms intuitively.
Sylwia Synak's artistic expression is released in abstraction. Her works create a fascinating effect in the viewer's eyes, which unfolds through differentiated surface structures. Atmospheric levels reveal subtleties layer by layer that make the work appear fragile and delicate. The use of color enables deeper, almost plastic dimensions, which elevate each individual work of art from its two-dimensionality.
The artist's acrylic paintings refer to her desire to give form to inner impulses through collage or sculpting. The canvas paintings are created using different colors, such as acrylic or ink, which claim autonomy with regard to the informal commission. Sylwia Synak supports this significance through the obvious and direct artistic intervention through cuts, spatula-wiping techniques and brush movements. As a result, the image space is organized very energetically. Even if the motif is non-representational, the artist creates depth, plasticity and rhythm using colors and emerging shapes.
Intuition and sensuality are Sylwia Synak's receptors that introduce her to new ideas for her work. Spontaneity and the ability to absorb and process everyday energies and inspiration from nature play a major role. The intuitive play with colors and shapes in her abstract art comes from her emotional intelligence and inexhaustible imagination. Using special production techniques, she processes her inner impulses into a method of image creation that brings her artistic vision closer to the viewer using associative moods and makes it tangible.