The Polish artist Joanna Chrobak has a very particular style, heavily influenced by her love of early Renaissance artists like Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung and Albrecht Dürer. Her paintings often depict scenes from myths and biblical tales, or similar stories from her own imagination. They are inhabited by half-naked beauties, unicorns, exotic birds and fish, pomegranates and apples of paradise.

Chrobak grew up in Poznan, and had an early ambition to be a picture restorer, but her plans changed and in 1994 she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, specialising in painting and photography.

‘There are no special rules for me,’ she says. ‘I just come to the studio in the morning and get to work, I don’t talk, I don’t drink tea, I don’t answer the phone. When I’m thinking about a painting there needs to be perfect silence in my studio.’

Joanna Chrobak’s website can be found here.

We are very grateful to our Russian friend Yuri for introducing us to the work of this artist, and for supplying most of the images.