Beneath the Surface of Reality: Interview with Kasia Muzyka

Kasia Muzyka is a Polish-American artist based in Minneapolis, MN. Her work weaves mysticism, human nature, and transcendental philosophy with inquiries into quantum physics—offering layered visual expressions that explore the nature of existence, perception, and the unseen. Often centering feminine presence as a portal, she invites viewers into intimate encounters with their inner worlds.

Muzyka has exhibited nationally and internationally with solo shows including Inner Explorations at Gal Art in Minneapolis, MN and the upcoming The Sacred Condition of Being in Manhattan, New York. Her work has appeared with Tyrrell Art Gallery, Dove Gallery, and in global charity auctions organized by Phoenix Opera and the Global Disaster Relief Team, amongst others.

Her art and voice have been featured in Vanity Fair, Arts to Hearts, Voyage Minnesota, New Visionary Magazine, and podcasts, including New Visionary and Born to Create. She has also taken part in artist talks series hosted by Victoria J. Fry, founder of Visionary Art Collective and Warnes Contemporary. Also, her work was shown at Red Dot Miami, a satellite fair during Art Basel.

Beyond painting, Muzyka explores cross-disciplinary collaborations in fashion and music—such as cover designs for MiLarKey and the founding of Call2Love, a wearable art brand. She is currently deepening her classical foundation at The Atelier Studio Program of Fine Art in Minneapolis. Her work resides in private collections across the United States, Canada, and Europe.

You recently closed your debut solo exhibition in New York, The Sacred Condition of Being. Can you share more about the body of work featured?

The Sacred Condition of Being emerged from a deep longing to explore what exists beneath the surface of visible reality — the layered territories of perception, memory, and soul. The works in the exhibition were created using coffee, wine, earth pigments, vibrational water, and other natural materials that carry both memory and meaning. These were not simply mediums; they were collaborators, vessels of time, ritual, and transformation.

Each painting unfolded as a chapter in a visual narrative I’ve been intuitively uncovering over several years — a story of becoming, fragmentation, return, and the invisible structures that hold us. From Innocence in Distress to Quantum Timelines, the series invites viewers into a multidimensional space where vulnerability, choice, and mystery converge. Many pieces felt like excavated tablets — as if they had always existed, simply waiting to be remembered.

What moved me most was how people responded. Some stood in silence. Others cried. Many said they felt truly “seen.” That was always my intention — to create more than an exhibition. I wanted to offer a portal. A remembering. A space where the sacred and the human could meet.

Now that the exhibition has wrapped, what have been your biggest takeaways?

In hindsight, I feel the real exhibition wasn’t only what was presented on the walls — it was also what unfolded within me. There were five key revelations that shaped the experience and continue to guide me.

First, I came to understand that the art already exists. I’m not creating it — I’m remembering it. My role is not to invent, but to listen, to become an instrument through which something ancient and eternal can come forth.

Second, success doesn’t always resemble what we’ve been taught. It’s not only about sales, press, or packed openings (though those happened). Real success is watching someone stand in front of your work with tears in their eyes because something inside them just woke up. That’s a different kind of arrival.

Third, don’t wait to be chosen. Initiate yourself. I stepped into this exhibition without traditional gatekeepers — I followed my intuition, gathered what I had, and moved forward before I felt “ready.” The path revealed itself as I walked it.

Fourth, protect the sacred. Not everything needs to be shared. Some insights, some moments in the studio, are meant to be held in quiet reverence. That’s where the deeper alchemy brews.

Finally, let the art remake you. This wasn’t just a show — it was a mirror, a ritual, a teacher. I walked out of it more whole than I was when I entered.

Your materials are deeply symbolic — from wine and coffee to egg tempera and vibrational water. What can you tell us about your creative process?

Stepping into my studio feels like entering a temple. It’s not just a space for making; it’s a sacred threshold where the seen and unseen meet. My process begins in stillness. It’s a meditation, a surrender. I don’t arrive with a plan — I listen, I feel, and I respond.

The materials I work with are alive. Wine, coffee, egg tempera, vibrational water, earth pigments — each holds its own resonance, memory, and vibration. They bleed, stain, and crack in their own rhythm. I don’t control them — I engage in dialogue with them. There’s an aliveness in that surrender, a quiet conversation between medium and maker, where the unknown reveals itself layer by layer.

Often, I feel like I’m unearthing something ancient. The work doesn’t emerge through force, but through recognition — like remembering a dream I once lived. My hand moves, but it is guided by something deeper, something I trust implicitly, even if I can’t name it.

Why is ritual so central to your practice, and how does it manifest in the work itself?

For me, ritual is the bridge between the act of painting and the metaphysical space the work occupies. It isn’t separate from the process — it is the process. Every gesture, every breath, every layer is part of a sacred choreography. I don’t just create a painting; I enter into relationship with it.

Ritual gives form to the formless. It anchors the mystery. Whether I’m mixing pigment with coffee, stirring yolk into tempera, or resting my hand on the canvas before beginning, each gesture is a way of saying: I’m listening. I’m here.

This approach transforms the studio into a ceremonial space and the act of creation into an offering. It allows me to move beyond linear time and into a more ancient rhythm — one that feels older than me, yet deeply personal. I believe when we treat creation as ritual, the resulting work carries that resonance. It holds something beyond image — a frequency, a memory.

Your paintings explore rich symbolic language — from binary code to archetypes. What themes run through your work, and what do they mean to you?

My work often moves through themes of perception, memory, mysticism, choice, and the unseen architectures shaping our lived reality. I’m fascinated by the threshold between what we see and what we feel — that liminal space where soul and matter meet.

Symbols and numbers — especially binary code — appear frequently as a way of referencing the structural language of existence. In many ways, my paintings are visual poems of becoming. They explore what it means to be whole and fragmented, lost and remembered, bound and free — simultaneously.

Archetypal energies show up repeatedly: innocence, rupture, return, divine union. I see the human experience as inseparable from the forces of nature and the cosmos — not isolated, but entangled in a spiraling continuum. The body, the womb, the void, the light — these are recurring forms that carry both emotional and spiritual gravity.

Ultimately, my work is about returning — not to what we’ve been taught, but to who we truly are beneath it all. It’s about presence. Essence. The sacred condition of being.

You’ve said you don’t create your paintings — you uncover them. Can you expand on that?

Yes — I truly believe I don’t create my paintings in the traditional sense. I uncover them. It’s as if they already exist somewhere — in an unseen architecture — and my task is to listen closely enough to bring them through.

It’s less about invention, more about recognition. I often describe the process as excavation — brushing dust off something ancient and forgotten, waiting patiently beneath the surface. It’s like uncovering the Sphinx — something timeless, powerful, and hidden.

Each mark, each movement, is guided by an inner knowing. I rarely begin with a concept. I begin with a pull, a vibration, and I follow it.

Sometimes I don’t fully understand a painting until it’s finished. But when it is, it feels like meeting something I’ve always known. That’s why I say the work remembers itself through me. I become the vessel, the translator, the midwife for something sacred that wants to be seen.

This process is humbling. It reminds me that art isn’t just something we make — it’s something we become in the act of allowing it to emerge.