Fundamentally Human

Helena Celewicz's portraits explore the inner complexities that live within all of us; where contradictions and paradoxes coexist. Through her eyes, these internal landscapes are where humans are most bold and vulnerable, peaceful and anxious, undefined and yet unmistakably, most ourselves.

The portraits featured in Fundamentally Human are linked by their focus on this inner life, using color and pose to reveal the tension between opposing emotional states. Together, they frame contradiction as a shared human condition.

Celewicz believes that the act of painting is not unlike the paradox of humanity itself: it is messy, time consuming, imperfect, and yet simultaneously exhilarating, meaningful, and full of life. Fundamentally Human offers a glimpse into the hidden self we all carry, and encourages the viewers to contemplate and celebrate the intricacy of their own interior world.

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Helena Celewicz is a Chicago-based artist working primarily as a painter. Helena's artistic training was informal but omnipresent, as ever since she was a child her world was surrounded by art. The walls of her home were covered in her father's paintings, the bookshelves filled with illustrated hard-covers of Impressionist and Expressionist masters.

Helena’s portraiture explores how colors dance, strengthen, flirt with one another, while evoking moods that words often cannot express. She especially enjoys painting her friends and family, where her color selection reflects the relationship she has to the subject.

Image courtesy of the artist.

Helena Celewicz

June 12 - July 4, 2026 at Art City