Giant canvases are stacked at least ten deep in several rooms of Bernadetta Skwarczynska’s home.

“This is my life,” she explains. “Painting is my life.”

She shows me a dynamic purple painting depicting Stone Henge, several energetic pictures of galaxies and a number of vibrant Egyptian Gods.

Bernadetta spends her days creating oil paintings inspired by the spiritual world and ancient civilisations, under the name Seven’Art, which she has sold to art lovers around the world, including
those in Poland, France, The Netherlands, America and Canada.

She says she is striving to break though the mast of conventional reality and reveal the connection between cosmic forces and the world of nature around us. Her work ranges from surreal and symbolic images to the moment of her own conception in a Polish meadow.

“Most important in my life is the spiritual world,” she says. “Usually I paint space, the elements of ancient civilisations, because this is what I like to learn about – Egypt, Greece, Rome. It’s interesting for me.

“All the buildings like Stone Henge, Easter Islands, mystical places, because these places have very big connections with people but I think people don’t know about it.

“Galaxies and nebulas is a very big part of my painting. It’s a never ending story with painting. There are so many beautiful things to paint in the universe.”

Bernadetta, who moved to England around eight years ago from her native Poland, started her working
life as a journalist, writing on a Polish newspaper, but now concentrates solely on her art.

“Being a journalist was my second thing,” she explains.

“My first was always painting. When I was very young, I was always intoeverything, I was everywhere at the same time, so drawing and painting was just one thing which could keep me in one place.

“I started very early, as soon as I could hold a pencil. It was what I loved from the beginning.”

Around 20 years ago, Bernadetta began experimenting with oils, and it is now all she uses.
All her paintings are drawn from her own ideas, and are extremely personal creations – she shakes her head emphatically when I ask if she also does commission work.

“I do paintings that I want to do,” she said. “It’s not good to paint for people because it’s completely different. It’s a different concentration. My painting is straight from my heart, from my soul and my mind. So this is what I can share with people. Painting for someone else is not the same thing. It’s just for money, I’m not painting for money. The money is just a bonus.”

Bernadetta has had several successful exhibitions during her time in the UK, including ones in London, Poole and, last year, at the Bournemouth International Centre. She is currently working on a project she will only describe as “a very big, international project,” which she hopes will become an annual event and involve both local and international artists.

But Bernadetta also likes to help others with her art – in Poland she spent time doing art therapy with patients in a psychiatric ward and would like to undertake a similar venture in the UK.

“I’m interested in the human mind and the human soul,” she explains.“I love challenges and I love people.”

I wonder if Bernadetta is ever lost for inspiration. She smiles and shakes her head.

“Most times I have too many ideas in my head - I don’t have time to paint everything I want,” she says.

“It doesn’t matter what you’re painting, whether it’s landscape, still nature or galaxies, it’s always your self portrait.

“The most important thing is to do what you love.”

www.sevenartpainter.com, facebook.com/7ArtPainting,

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