Szilvia Ponyiczki
My practice explores memory, dreams and our connection to the past, both personal and collective. The works I create depict imagined worlds where ancient symbols, patterns, forgotten stories and fragments of human history come together.
My journey into these themes began with a personal search for identity and belonging after moving from Hungary to the UK. Through exploring my dreams, I became interested in Jungian ideas of the collective unconscious and the possibility that images, symbols and patterns might connect us to experiences beyond our own lives. This gradually led me towards ancient art, archaeology and the visual languages of early civilisations.
I am fascinated by what remains when the stories behind objects and images are lost. Archaeological fragments can survive for thousands of years, while their original meanings, rituals and beliefs become impossible to fully recover. I use these traces as starting points for imaginative exploration, creating my own visual narratives and mythologies from fragments of the past.
My paintings often combine recognisable forms with ambiguous figures, symbols and dreamlike landscapes. Rather than illustrating a particular historical period or assigning fixed meanings to symbols, I allow different visual references to meet and transform. The resulting imagery exists somewhere between the familiar and the unknown, inviting viewers to bring their own associations and interpretations to the work.
For me, painting is a way of exploring questions that cannot always be answered through words. It is an ongoing process of discovery, connecting inner experience with the wider history of human imagination. Through these invented worlds, I explore what we inherit, what we forget, and how we continue to create stories about our origins and our place in the world.
Lived Experience
When I moved from Hungary to the UK at the age of 35, I never imagined that I would eventually become an artist. After ten years working as an architect, becoming a mother to twins and starting a new life in another country, I found myself questioning who I was and where I belonged. I began exploring these questions through my dreams, which gradually led me to Jungian ideas, ancient symbols and the possibility of a shared human memory. Art became a way of making sense of my own experiences and finding connections with something much older and bigger than myself. What started as a personal search has grown into an ongoing journey through imagined histories, forgotten stories and the mysteries of our origins.
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