Cosmic Theater

JJ MURPHY GALLERY is thrilled to present "Cosmic Theater," a solo exhibition of recent paintings by the Polish-born artist Ewelina Bochenska. The show opens Wednesday, March 4, from 6 to 8 PM. It runs from March 5 to April 4, 2026. Gallery hours are Thursday–Saturday, 12–6 PM. Ewelina Bochenska considers herself something of a nomad: for many years she traveled incessantly. In 2017, she left Brooklyn to be closer to the Southwest, from which she continually draws inspiration, along with her native homeland. Bochenska claims to be strongly influenced by the energy of "place," whether it be from the Native American imagery (ancient petroglyphs and pictographs) of the American Southwest or the folk art and folklore traditions of Poland that impacted her as a child. Her working process has slowly developed over time. Bochenska observes, "Nowadays I don't have to physically travel because I travel 'within' the painting. Every painting is like going on a different inner journey; it is an inner nomadic studio practice." Bochenska does not paint directly from observation but rather from within herself. For her, making art is a Zen-like practice. In order to paint, the artist claims that she needs to be "hyper-focused" while "approaching the painting with an empty mind." Bochenska told an interviewer, "For me, painting is a very sacred way of bringing something into existence, where the linear notion of time collapses and everything exists all at once, a quantum realm of infinite possibilities." Some of Bochenska's paintings initially appear to be abstract, such as "Baba Jaga wsród kwiatów (Baba Jaga amongst flowers)" (2025) or "For Lumin" (2025), but they might just as easily be viewed as landscapes. In fact, most of the paintings in the show appear to be thickly painted landscapes, sometimes combined with collaged fabric or metal elements applied to the surface. Her landscapes often consist of trees, flowers, plants, mountains, moons, valleys, and shells rendered in flattened space. She employs both bright and muted colors: purple, turquoise, deep dark blue, violet, orange, yellow, and red. The seascape, "Koosebo (Milky Way in Paiute Language)" (2025), is somewhat atypical in its use of color. Two moons—one dark purple and blue and another turquoise—appear in a lemon sky, along with three orbs, including a larger one that looks like a sunny-side up egg. The title references the Milky Way and the three indigenous tribes of the Great Basin, for whom the galaxy represented the path that deceased souls traveled in the afterlife, which was illuminated by bright stars. There's a visionary quality to Bochenska's work. In a review in Art in America of a previous solo exhibition, Elizabeth Buhe notes that, despite the artist developing her own unique aesthetic, there are "nods to Georgia O'Keeffe's hallucinogenic landscapes, Florine Stettheimer's storybook color palette, and the informality of hippie handicraft." In their intent, Bochenska's small, dreamlike works also recall the illuminated, spiritual paintings of the visionary symbolist Agnes Pelton (1881–1961).