- Signature Member of Women Artists of the West (WAOW)
- Associate Member of American Women Artists (AWA)
- Juried Member of the American Academy of Equine Art (AAEA)
- Member of National Oil and Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS)
- American Impressionist Society (AIS)
Iwona Jankowski – Artist’s Statement
AQHA 2016 Opening Gala – American Quarter Horse Museum, Amarillo, TX
I am a contemporary equine artist and the creator of my signature “Mottled Horses” series, a body of work I have developed since 2002. Through this series, I explore the spirit, emotion, and inner world of horses by blending abstract expressionism with touches of realism.
My horses often emerge from colorful, chaotic abstract backgrounds that represent the complex and ever-changing world surrounding them. Rather than attempting to reproduce a horse exactly as I see it, I focus on what I feel about the animal. I deliberately move away from precise shapes, textures, and natural colors, choosing instead a few evocative details that suggest rather than fully reveal the subject.
The eyes are central to my work. I often paint them with a greater degree of realism because I see the eyes as windows to the soul. Through them, I try to express the horse’s emotions, vulnerability, strength, curiosity, and profound desire for connection. I believe horses possess a remarkable ability to communicate without words, offering humans a language based on trust, loyalty, and feeling.
A defining element of my Mottled Horses is the use of secondary transparent layers.
These subtle images can suggest movement, memory, another horse, or a particular moment unfolding around the central figure. They add depth and create the feeling that there is a story beyond what is immediately visible.
I am less interested in depicting everything than in giving the viewer an indication—just enough to awaken imagination. By leaving parts of the horse unresolved and allowing abstraction to interact with recognizable forms, I invite each viewer to complete the story in their own way. The horse may appear to be emerging from an unfamiliar world, searching for connection, or quietly communicating with another being.
For me, painting horses is ultimately about a spiritual and emotional connection. I see a silent, almost magical communion between horses and between horses and humans—a language of the soul that cannot always be explained, only witnessed and felt.
Through my paintings, I hope viewers will look beyond the physical beauty of the horse and encounter its inner presence. I want each work to become a meeting place between the horse, the viewer, and my own emotional response to this extraordinary animal. If the painting encourages someone to pause, feel, imagine, and experience a personal connection with the horse’s spirit, then the painting has fulfilled its purpose.
Iwona Jankowski
