From Realism To Abstraction - Why I've Started To Paint Abstractly & Why Abstract Artists Follow Feeling Over Form.

For years, I thought I had to paint things the way they looked.

I'd try to capture a flower exactly as it appeared, a landscape precisely as I saw it. But something always felt constrained. I was chasing accuracy when what I really wanted to express was a feeling.

When I finally let go of that need for precision and started painting abstractly, everything changed.

Following Colour, Not Rules

Abstract painting freed me. It allowed me to stop asking "Does this look right?" and start asking "Does this feel right?"

I realised I wasn't interested in replicating the world around me any longer — I wanted to translate how it made me feel. The way standing at the edge of the sea makes my soul exhale. The softness of petals caught in warm light. The quiet energy of colour moving across a canvas.

When I paint abstractly I follow colour the way some people follow music. It leads me. It tells me where to go next.

Rooted in Memory and Place

My abstract work is deeply influenced by my childhood in Poland. I grew up in communist-era Warsaw, surrounded by grey concrete blocks, but my summers were spent in the countryside — roaming through meadows, wading in streams, watching the warm evening light settle over dirt tracks. Those contrasts taught me that colour and beauty aren't just visual — they're emotional necessities.

Now, living on the Dorset coast in the UK, I find that same sense of breath and wonder when I look out at the horizon. The sea, the light, the ever-changing skies — they all carry that same feeling I've been chasing since I was a child.

Abstract painting lets me capture that. Not the literal image, but the impression. The essence.

Strength in Softness

Life has taught me resilience. I've moved through seasons of uncertainty and found my footing again and again. My faith has been a constant source of strength and comfort, a reminder that even in difficult times, Gods' love persists and there is beauty, hope, and grace.

Painting has become my way of processing all of that. It's where I turn heaviness into light, where I transform emotion into something that can be seen and felt.

My work reflects that journey — energy held within calm, strength expressed through softness. I'm not interested in creating chaos or drama. I want to create sanctuary.

An Invitation to Exhale

Abstract art invites you to bring your own interpretation. There's no "right" way to see it. You bring your own feelings, your own memories, your own experience — and the painting meets you there.

That's what I love most about it. My hope is that when you look at one of my paintings, you feel a gentle shift. A softening. A sense of ease and possibility.

Because that's what painting gives me. And I want to share that with you.

Kate 🌿