Soft Glistening Lights

Crystal Lupa

Monika Marchewka

Crystal Lupa & Monika Marchewka: Soft Glistening Lights

2024 July 6 — August 11

A hand reaches towards the sky, seeking to feel the gentle breeze brushing past the fingertips, adorned with gems that glitter in the sunlight. Under a starry night sky, white peacock feathers shimmer in the moonlight, as if draped in an elegant embroidered gown. Hiro Hiro Art Space is honored to present the dual exhibition “Soft Glistening Lights, ” featuring artists Crystal Lupa and Monika Marchewka, with Marchewka exhibiting in Asia for the first time. This early summer exhibition showcases a series of poetic paintings that evoke the glistening light of silver waves and an atmosphere of soft, flowing movement.

Crystal Lupa, a graduate of Central Saint Martins, explores a diverse range of creative fields, including art, music, and fashion design. Drawing inspiration from dreams, literature, and fragments of memory, she uses delicate brushstrokes reminiscent of gauzy mist, embellished with fragments of gold and silver leaf, to create a unique inner light. This forms a distinctive, timeless, and spaceless haze that allows viewers to traverse their own experiences and imaginations, fostering a deep resonance.

Monika Marchewka, born in Poland, was the painting animator for the film “Loving Vincent” and the painting animation supervisor for “The Peasants.” Her work symbolizes the crystallization of emotions, presenting close-up scenes reminiscent of film storyboards. Elements like gazes, tears, glimmers, pearls, and gems evoke the “eye miniature paintings” during the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, often combined with jewelry, serving as intimate keepsakes between lovers. Marchewka’s paintings reflect the nuances and fluctuations of feelings brought about by relationships: longing, love, hope, vulnerability, fear, and regret.

From the external metaphor of emotional gaze to the internal exploration of spiritual sight, Marchewka and Lupa transform personal sensitivities into a glistening language, inviting viewers to delve into deeper, underwater dimensions.

About Artists

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Crystal Lupa

Born in California in 1989. She received her BA degree in fashion design womenswear from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London in 2012. She is currently based in Taipei, working in areas including painting, illustration, sculpture, fashion design, and music composition.
Regardless of the media, her visual language always exudes an air of Eastern mysticism and fantasy literature.

Monika Marchewka

Born in Poland in 1988. Currently lives and works in Gdynia, Poland. In 2013, she obtained her degree in painting at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland. After graduation, Marchewka started working as an animator on the world’s first fully painted film, “Loving Vincent,” and later on “The Peasants” (produced by BreakThru Films). Since leaving BreakThru Films, she has been painting full-time and exhibiting worldwide, including in Italy, the U.K., Taiwan, the U.S., and Poland.