As long as I can recall, painting, drawing, or sketching always came easily to me, but I never pursued them. I only came into contact with professional painting in 2012 at Color Spa in Sopot, which was conducted by Agnieszka Olędzka. At that time, I was com- pleting my post-doctoral study and I thought that the moment had come to take up my passion again. A friend from work invited me to the first meeting, and that is how my serious painting began. The result was my first modest exhibition in 2013. Still today I am inspired by contemporary painting, which employs various techniques and at the basis of which are abstraction and minimalism. My pictures are really stories of experiences.

So my intention is not to reproduce reality as it is, but as I see it. They are subjective interpretations. It is also hard to find in my paintings any one specific style of painting, since I do not have any one school that I model myself on. Meetings with Beata Polak-Pela have had a great influence on my way of perceiving reality as a painter. I am grateful to her for conversations about painting during many hours of meetings over coffee. To use a metaphor, I could say that Beata has guided my paint-brush.
I went back to painting in 2019, when I was Vice-Rector for IT and International Re- lations. At that time, one of my responsibilities was to direct the SEA EU project and to organize everything from the formal start of the project on 1 October 2019. Many people worked on the project. Step by step they built up a team, participated in meet- ings, and set out operational goals. Beginnings were not easy, but we went forward, and every completed stage brought considerable satisfaction.

The idea of a cycle of pictures inspired by the SEA EU project came to me just after a trip to Brussels, where we had signed declaration of partnership. The more I be- came absorbed in the project, the more I thought of pictures. I saw them everywhere. I woke up at easels and I fell asleep at them. I travelled by car, I listened to music at easels. They were literally everywhere, until I finally decided to give in. And that is how my adventure with SEA EU began in a completely different dimension from what I had thought of before. It became the theme of my pictures, a motif of my creative imagination. I began to think of the project in terms of the colours, emotions, and 19 memories brought back from the cities where our partner universities were located. The cycle of pictures took almost three years to complete. Initially, it was to consist of two pictures from each partner university and additional ones from the city in which it all began – Brussels. Finally, I had to rework my original idea, since the pandemic de- layed trips to two cities. I was not able to travel to Kiel or Brest. So the pictures from Kiel and Brest await my trips to those cities. I hope I will manage to visit both Brest and Kiel, not just in order to paint those places, but also to reproduce on canvas how I see them and how I feel.

Each of the partner cities is different, but one thing links them all: the sea. As I painted the pictures, I tried to reproduce the emotions and reflections that accompanied me, but also the specific features of each city. Sometimes these were details that drew my attention, and at other times it was the whole surroundings of that place. Concrete situations underlie the pictures in this catalogue, unexpected events, adventures, but, above all, the people with whom I was able to share it all. I flew to Brussels with our Rector Piotr Stepnowski and with a student, Jan Szczepaniak. I walked through the narrow streets of Cádiz with Eva Weronis, Marlena Rutkowska-Myzyk, and the late Kamila Chomicz-Sokołowska. I visited Split with Magdalena Nieczuja-Goniszewska and Monika Zdroik. My husband Tomasz went with me to Malta.

I painted the picture entitled The Grande Place at Night because I was delighted by the old town that I came across with Piotr Stepnowski late in the evening as we were looking for the hotel after we had signed the declaration calling SEA EU into being. I painted Gdańsk City of Cranes during the student protests against the decision of the Con- stitutional Tribunal about abortion. Strikes are nothing new for the students of our University. They struck during Martial Law, and they protest today too in defence of their rights. That is why this picture was painted in very decided and energetic col- ours.

The inspiration for In the Steps of Diocletian was the hotel in which we were staying. The Hotel Slavija was built in the ancient walls of Diocletian’s Palace, which is included in the UNESCO World heritage list. It is the oldest and, at the same time, the most intimate hotel in Split. Its rooms are situated in the southern part of the Palace where the Emperor’s private chambers were, and where in several places you can still find the ancient walls.

In one of his books, Peter F. Drucker wrote that mediocrity is three-quarters of the way to redundancy. The European University of the Seas project SEA-EU is certainly not mediocre.

                                                                                                                                                     SEA EU Maritime Universities
                                                                                            in the Paintings of Aneta Oniszczuk-Jastrząbek, Gdańsk 2022