"Morning" Painting

Irina Polonsky is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is grounded in painting, collage, and the tactile language of materials. For her, painting is both an investigation and a ritual — a space where the eye, mind, and hand work in unison. She works in series, creating cohesive bodies of work that carry depth and conceptual integrity, each emerging from a sustained daily practice.

Materiality lies at the heart of her process. She is drawn to the physical presence of paint, the layered density of collage, the texture of paper and canvas — finding joy in their weight, surface, and resistance. For her, working with materials is an act of intimacy, a way to inhabit the slow alchemy of colour and form.

Her works are born from the desire to touch the ungraspable — to catch the shimmer before it fades. Each piece carries an undercurrent of longing, transforming absence into presence, and silence into texture. They are never only one thing, always holding something more: a shadow, a memory, a fragment of the body’s own language.

She holds an MFA from the University of Haifa (2024), where she was awarded the President’s Prize, and a BA from the Moscow Institute of Architecture. Her works are in the collections of the University of Haifa, Palmse Manor in Estonia, and in private collections worldwide.