Photograph by Kamila Dabrowska, courtesy of Slendzinski Gallery, Poland.
Rather than depicting nature, I seek to collaborate with it. Through this approach, I explore my own relationship with the natural world. The process itself is central to my inquiry, seen as a life lesson in humility, openness, attentiveness, mindfulness, patience, determination, and forgiveness.
My practice spans a range of media, including drawing, printmaking, video, site-specific and participatory installations, with a growing interest in how process itself can become a form of performance.
Instead of exerting total control, I work with water as an active collaborator in the creation of an image. Mixing it with oil paint, watercolor, or ink, I allow the materials to interact organically on paper or board. At times, I set up physical conditions that allow water to shape the work - such as filling a pool, or building a raft and installing it along the shore. Naturally and locally sourced materials as well as different states of water collected in various places have created a vocabulary in my work - be it rain, ice, seawater and recently glacier water.
The unpredictability and limited control of my methods make her work a space between accident and design, between acceptance and destruction.
Dorota Borowa is a Polish artist based in Ireland. She exhibits both nationally and internationally, with solo exhibitions including Grilse Gallery, Killorglin (2025), Slendzinski Gallery, Poland (2025), and the forthcoming Uillinn: West Cork Arts Center (2027) as well as group exhibitions such as Department of Modern Art, National Museum in Gdansk, Poland (2025), Arctic Circle Assembly, Harpa, Reykjavik (2024), Sarah Walker Gallery, Castletownbere, Ireland (2024) and has been awarded a number of AiR programmes (e.g. Arctic Circle Residency; Uillinn: West Cork Arts Center, Ireland, PS2, Belfast). Her practice has been supported by the Irish Arts Council, South Dublin and Kerry County Councils as well as the Polish Ministry of Culture. Dorota's works have been featured in IMAGE Interiors Magazine, Visual Artist News Sheets and Bloomers Magazine. Her paintings are in the collection of the National Museum in Gdansk in Poland.