Maja graduated as an architect at Warsaw University of Technology and went on to start her own business. Her works combine designing buildings and working as a freelancer and painting watercolours.

Maja has been drawing and painting since she was a child as her mum is also an architect and “allowed her to draw with her professional tools as a child”. When she started studying architecture, they had painting classes in her second year, where they experimented with watercolours and acrylics. “At first no one took it seriously because it seems abstract to believe architects are engineers and not artists, however, those classes were very freestyle and that freestyle helped me develop my own style in watercolours.”

Maja does watercolour paintings based off photos and she loves to sight see using Google street view which is great as a cheaper and more practical alternative during the pandemic. Maja enjoys painting the architecture here in Portugal and loves the Algarve for its mood and weather “as it truly embodies summer”.

She recently came up with the idea to create a colouring book with the cities from Southern Europe and has chosen her favourite cities from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and France, which you can find on Amazon. I asked Maja what inspires her in terms of painting and she told me that she is “mostly inspired by the light, mood, weather, architecture and colours of different cities, as well as being hugely inspired by comics and films when it comes to creating her own art.” Maja told me she has always been passionate about art and designing, affirming that it is “more interesting to paint something myself than to imitate someone else’s art. I am not trying to imitate others styles but to show how I feel or what I think about each city I paint”. I went on to ask Maja what her favourite thing is to draw and paint and she said that she thinks painting very detailed churches really stands out to her as her best work as it is extremely difficult to create that much detail and her mum says that her “detailed buildings look like embroidery”.

Maja and I spoke about her favourite artists and the styles of painting that she enjoys the most and she told me her favourite artist would have to be van Gogh and other impressionists. Maja “likes more abstract art than photorealistic paintings, but I appreciates the skill”. When she was younger, she tried to make abstract art and her mum would say, that even Picasso could draw things in a photorealistic style, and it’s good to learn the basics first and then create abstract or simpler paintings. She knows it might be an unpopular way of doing things but she follows her rule and after many years of learning perspective and drawing, now she tries to make art more abstract from time to time using water colours to do that.

Maja works with companies that sell her prints, including IKEA, where they sold the Bjorsta set entitled “City Icons”, which included her watercolour paintings of the Eiffel Tower, Brooklyn Bridge and New York. Maja sells her beautiful original art and prints, on her website majawronska.com and additionally if you like her work and want to keep up with her latest pieces please give her a follow on Instagram @majatakmaj as being an artist during the pandemic is challenging and your support would mean a lot to Maja.

Author

Following undertaking her university degree in English with American Literature in the UK, Cristina da Costa Brookes moved back to Portugal to pursue a career in Journalism, where she has worked at The Portugal News for 3 years. Cristina’s passion lies with Arts & Culture as well as sharing all important community-related news.

Cristina da Costa Brookes