Elzbieta Sikorska was born in Warsaw, Poland, and studied printmaking and painting at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. After leaving Poland and a brief stay in Germany, she moved to the U.S., initially settling in New Hampshire and later in the Washington, DC area, where she still lives and works.
Throughout her artistic life, she has explored various media. For the past twenty years, her focus has been working on and with paper. Her drawings have evolved from small pencil sketches to large-scale multimedia works.
Recently, Sikorska has been working on the “Invisible Landscape,” an ongoing series of intricate drawing compositions that incorporate collaged Arches watercolor paper and translucent abaca paper that she created herself. She often designs these in irregular shapes before drawing on them. Inspired by literature, she also sometimes includes handwriting in her drawings. The project explores hidden aspects of nature related to time, nature’s stored memories, and information about our past and ongoing existence in relation to nature. The aim is to examine the layers of meaning in our natural environment and to present it as a witness and process, rather than just recreational sites, and ourselves as land stewards.
During her career, Sikorska has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Selected solo exhibitions include Time Stands Still at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC; Nature and Culture at the McLean Project for the Arts, VA; Everything Is Double at the Athenaeum Gallery, VA; Territory, Ambiguity at the Maryland Art Space, Baltimore, MD; Pejzaże (Landscapes) at the Kordegarda Gallery in Warsaw, Poland, and Landscapes at the Polish Institute, Leipzig, Germany. She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions in the US and abroad.
She has received many fellowships, awards, and residencies, including grants from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County and the Maryland State Arts Council, the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund in Washington, DC, and a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work is part of numerous private and public collections, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the District of Columbia Art Bank, and the National Museum in Krakow, Poland.
