In her paintings, Monika Michalko creates spaces that bring together materiality and abstraction, figuration and ornament. Imaginary, fantastical worlds intersect with the everyday, often in seemingly weightless, floating scenes where human and superhuman beings coexist. Whether in surreal landscapes or interiors, her multilayered paintings invite viewers into the depths of a hybrid world that feels both immersive and alive. At times, Michalko moves beyond the two-dimensional canvas into three-dimensional space, making viewers part of the work itself. “Working with different materials and media is part of my experiment, even though the cosmos in a certain sense always remains the same. Over the years I have developed a vocabulary of colors and forms that is continuous yet constantly evolving,” she notes.

Michalko has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the Marianne-Defet Painting Scholarship (2023), the Hamburg Working Grant (2013), and the Gifted Students Scholarship of the Sammelstiftung of Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (2006). Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions at institutions such as Kunsthalle Nürnberg (2024); Städtisches Museum Engen (2024); National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest (2024); Deichtorhallen Hamburg (2020).