Marta Derkiewicz (née Urbańska) is a Polish surrealist painter based in Finedon, Northamptonshire, UK. Born and raised in Gdańsk, she comes from a matrilineal tradition of making: her grandmother, mother, and children all paint, a creative inheritance that shaped her relationship with art from the very beginning.

Derkiewicz studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 2008. Art-making has been a constant in her life since childhood, but it took years of searching – through various media, techniques, and influences – to find her true visual language. Between 2008 and 2015, she was active in the Polish cultural scene as an organiser of art and craft events before relocating to the UK in 2016.

Her primary influences are Zdzisław Beksiński, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo, H.R. Giger, and Tomasz Sętowski; artists whose work occupies the border between the visible and the imagined. Working predominantly in watercolour on canvas, a technique she considers rare among contemporary painters. Derkiewicz builds layered surfaces using a deliberate varnishing method: matte and gloss finishes applied selectively to create contrast in light refraction within a single composition.

Her work has been exhibited in Poland and the United Kingdom.

EXHIBITION LIST

Solo Exhibitions
2018 – Holy Sepulchre Church, Northampton, UK
2016 — Painted World, Polish Baltic Philharmonic, Gdańsk, Poland
2015 — Inside Stories, Centre of Culture, Cieplewo, Poland

Group Exhibitions
2017 — A Place in Between, Espacio Gallery, London, UK
2003 — Burdl, Gdańsk, Poland 2003 — Pubkin, Sopot, Poland