Artist Bio

Alicja Knitter Coe – was born in Poland and educated at the Academy Of Fine Art  (PWSSP and now UAP) in Poznan, Poland. During many years studying art in Poland, Alicja focused on painting in oil, acrylic, and pastel. Excelling in these skills, she found the opportunity to explore painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and photography as well as performance art  and installation.

She worked as an illustrator for a newspapers in Poland.  Working as a designer for a publishing house, she had taken part in creating catalogs, and complex books, as well as preparing drawings, paintings, or illustrations.

Alicja has worked in the architectural field as well, preparing color palettes for new or historical architecture.  She has also taught art for ten years to adults and children.

Alicja was a member of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers (ZPAP), and a member of The Art Association “Wieża Ciśnień”, which brings together a wide range of artists, art historians, curators, etc. giving her a chance to explore art in action, performance, video art, and much more.
She frequently takes part by donating works in special auctions in Poland and Europe.

While attending countless “plein airs”-  a form of art workshop in Poland and Europe, she had opportunity to meet other Polish and European artists working in different mediums and various forms of artistic expression, sharing with each other different approaches to art.

While active in the Polish art community, she frequently exhibited individually and in group shows. Since 2007, Alicja has lived and worked in Berkeley, California, where she continues her artistic progress. For ten years she taught art to adults and children in Poland, and now she teaches drawing, painting in oil, acrylic, gouache, pastels and other media in The San Francisco Bay Area.

Artist Statement

“I want to paint not what I know, but what I feel and how I see the World.
I am on the voyage of discovery.
To paint what one feels or sees, is the most personal.
One person sees the edge of the woods with a curious eye, another a rainbow of flowers in the meadow before the woods, and yet another may see only the silhouette of contrast of the wood against the sky.
Here is the diversity, we can begin to explore ourselves and follow our feelings, our curiosity, into a rainbow of color, full of emotion in the meadow flowers; or a deeper, darker analogy in the contrast of woods against the sky.
A lifetime exists in exploring these sights and feelings welling from my soul.
I rarely have a complete idea or image in my mind when begin work. Landscapes become a metaphor of my exploration.
I enjoy placing the observer into a concentrated inner space, exiting all senses, and giving one feeling of voyage through a new World.”