Translating Memory into Form: The Art of Marianna Stuhr

On July 6, 2025, at the Krzysztofory Palace - the main seat of the Museum of Krakow - an extraordinary exhibition of paintings by Marianna Stuhr opened to the public. The date was not accidental: it marked exactly one year since the death of her father, Jerzy Stuhr (1949-2024) - one of Poland's most iconic actors, directors, and public intellectuals.

But this is not a commemorative exhibition. There are no portraits or quotations. The series, titled "IN MEMORY" (KU PAMIĘCI), consists of over a dozen abstract paintings - and offers no easy sentimentality or literal storytelling. Instead, it presents an experience. Tender. Intense. Physical. Memory here is not a recollection - it is a process. A rhythm. A biology.

Marianna Stuhr - a painter of abstraction known for avoiding direct narrative - opens a deeply personal space in this cycle. In the final months of her father's life, when their communication began to fade, the artist turned to neurobiology. Studying the mechanics of memory - how it forms, breaks down, and disappears - she searched for a way to understand and translate what was happening not only between them, but also within herself.

Observing trembling nerve cells under the microscope, fighting to establish even the smallest connection, made me aware of the mystery and beauty of nature on the most molecular level. Truth is encoded there - and truth is the most important word in visual art, Marianna Stuhr says.

This truth does not scream from the canvas. It doesn't tell stories. It resonates. The paintings throb with tension, shimmer with echoes of presence, and avoid any form of literalism. If we sense traces of emotion, of conversation, of longing - it is because we choose to be open to them.

At the Krzysztofory Palace, viewers don't witness an illustration of grief, but a transformation of memory into form. Suspended between scientific observation and emotional vulnerability, the IN MEMORY series feels like a neural map - of synapses, impulses, ruptures. It is a record of connection attempted, interrupted, remembered.

The exhibition also reveals the bond between Marianna and Jerzy Stuhr - not only as family, but as artists. Though they expressed themselves through different disciplines, they shared one essential value: authenticity. In painting, as in theatre, truth is the measure of all things. And it is precisely that truth that forms the bridge between them - not just in life, but now, through art.

The exhibition's minimalist design allows room for silence and reflection. And it is in this silence - not as the absence of words, but as a heightened state of awareness - that the paintings begin to speak most powerfully.

From Krakow to Porto

Before the context of loss gave the public a new lens through which to see Marianna Stuhr's work, we at Porto.art had already recognized the inner energy and tension within her paintings.

I remember seeing her work for the first time and thinking - this isn't about form. This is about nerve, recalls Maja Mlodzinska, co-founder of Porto.art.
From the beginning, her paintings spoke in a way that needed no explanation. They weren't 'about' anything. They simply were.

That is why we are preparing a second, independent exhibition - opening in spring 2026 in Porto, by the ocean, in a space that does not ask for justification.
A show without biographical context, without names, without memories.
Just pure form, light, and sensitivity.

The exhibition IN MEMORY is on view at the Krzysztofory Palace, Museum of Krakow, from 6 July to 3 August 2025.