Veronika Szkudlarek

vszkudlarek@ocadu.ca
Associate Professor, Tenured
Faculty of Art
painting
drawing
Experimental Animation
XR Innovation : Painting
Sculpting & Animating
Virtual Materiality (Research Thesis)
Feminist Cultural Theory
Art History and Contemporary Art Theory
New Media Studies
contemporary art
Abstraction

Veronika Szkudlarek makes paintings, drawings and animations that use abstraction and gesture to examine form and color. The physical qualities of paint —its imperfections, clumps, wetness, marks—are central to her explorations that resist control. Grounded in intuition, her work unfolds without preparatory drafts, having the mark on the surface generate ideas for the next ones. Attentive to color relativity —her work emphasizes how colors change and interact depending on their neighbors. Her earth-tone pink palette draws on ancient and women’s histories, like clay fertility symbols, connecting the color to a broader sense of shared human experience. This is contrasted with fragmented forms—such as inflatable sex dolls, intestinal shapes, plastic bags, and babushka dolls— playfully layering personal and cultural references. Szkudlarek’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Queens Museum and KCAI: Centre for Contemporary Practices, and presented at institutions like NSCAD University, Columbia University, and the FATE Biennale. Gary Michael Dault of The Globe and Mail wrote that “artist Veronika Szkudlarek has already chalked up enough experiences to fuel a dozen careers in painting.” Her solo exhibition Lion Mouse in Toronto was highlighted as a must-see art event, as was her solo Painted Hybrids exhibited in Warsaw. She is the recipient of the Outstanding Merit Award from Pratt Institute and the OCAD University Faculty of Art Teaching Award, and has received multiple E-campus Ontario and Canada Foundation for Innovation research grants, as well as Seed funding, and was shortlisted for the BLG Equity Award. Her work has been featured in The Global Television Network, CTV News, and she has lectured globally in cities like New York City, Kigali, Jerusalem, Kansas City, Cairo, Oman, and Montreal.

Szkudlarek is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University.
She lives in New York City.