Pastel entered my artistic practice while I was studying in Poland. I was drawn to its dual nature: it is a graphic medium, immediate and responsive to the movement of the hand, yet it also allows me to work with colour, space, and light much as I would in painting. This space between drawing and painting became a field of sustained experimentation for me.

My first encounters with the International Pastel Biennale in Nowy Sącz gradually developed into a long-standing professional collaboration. In 2008, I coordinated the presentation of the 3rd International Pastel Biennale at the Lviv Palace of Arts. I wanted both to work with pastel myself and to introduce its international context to audiences in Lviv: different schools, artistic languages, and approaches to the medium.

In 2010, I organised an exhibition of the 4th International Pastel Biennale at Lviv’s Museum of Ethnography and Arts and Crafts. A continuing professional dialogue between Nowy Sącz and Lviv began to take shape.

The next stage was particularly important to me as an artist. At the 5th International Pastel Biennale in Nowy Sącz, my Presence series received second place and the Medal of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. It was a moment when my long exploration of pastel gained international recognition from fellow professionals.

Yet the significance of that event goes beyond the awards. Presence opened a direction that I continue to develop today. Pastel allowed me to work with things that are difficult to define as objects: traces, fields, rhythms, vibrations, the density of colour, and forms appearing and disappearing. The medium became more than a technique; it became a way of thinking.

In 2013, I took part in the 6th International Pastel Biennale, presented in Nowy Sącz and Kraków. The following year, I co-organised a major exhibition of the 6th Biennale in Lviv, where approximately 300 works were shown at the Lviv Art Gallery. My collaboration with the Biennale later continued in another professional role: as a jury member.

My relationship with the International Pastel Biennale has thus developed alongside my own artistic practice: from an interest in the medium to organising international exhibitions; from experimentation to the Presence series and international recognition; and from exhibiting to serving on the jury.

Most importantly, the process continues. I still work in pastel today. My series, imagery, and visual language change, but what first drew me to the medium remains: its ability to occupy the delicate boundary between drawing and painting, between an immediate gesture and an atmosphere created through colour.