MARTYNA WIELGOPOLAN

Honestly when it comes to ArtPortfolio, I don’t know where to begin. My experience with these coolest-on-earth art classes begun in October 2019, when I realised that I needed real help with deadlines and especially with the portfolios for universities. I applied for Architecture and I dreamed about getting to the UCL. Wojtek and Ania were the only ones who could give provide me with so many details about each particular university, its priorities, atmosphere, acceptance rates, knowledge and experience that one might gain there and other answers to the FAQs appearing every now and then in my head. These guys really know what they’re doing. 

Before ArtPortfolio I also attended other art courses that Warsaw had to offer and, besides that, The Bartlett Summer School provided by the UCL for anyone who might want to join their community in the future or simply get the hang of architecture at a uni. While other drawing and art classes started to appear boring to me after a while of redrawing the same thing for the 12th time, Ania and Wojtek came up with an approach that always kept my mind busy (which is kind of difficult)

When I first appeared at their place with some of my drawings for Wojtek to have a look at I literally cried. I was a weird but funny moment when, if I remember well, Wojtek said something like: “Oh my God why are you crying, its not that all of your drawings are bad. I really like the drawings of your from the Summer School and there is plenty of potential. Don’t worry, work with us you’ll get a better hang of it.” Then I said through my tears: “It’s okay. I’m only crying because I have found someone who understands.”

Throughout the course I managed to do a lot of new, cool things that I would never even think of. We did etching, drawing, painting, trying out various media, focusing on reinterpreting other artists and artistic notions, trying out collages or seeing still art the way nobody else can. Even though this seems like normal art classes nothing can replace the atmosphere, professionalism and experience and Ania ans Wojtek create. Ania is always there to give you another homework (yes you get homework, take it seriously) make coffee, chat about recent events in your life and improve your organisational skills the way your parents never would. Wojtek, on the other hand, is always there to tell you to get back to work from the smoke break, suggest when you are going in the wrong direction with your work or even help you ‘destroy it’ (as one of us, students may say) a bit. After a while I have learned that sometimes you need to destroy one thing to create another. They make up a duo which presents itself with undoubtable experience and will surely help you open up your mind. This amazing adventure has been going on until the Covid outbreak which forced all of us to have a break, but Ania and Wojtek don’t give up and arrange online classes, too. 

Even though I have been attending ArtPortfolio classes for only a few months it feels like home anytime I come. Wojtek once told me that once you come for help with university application the acceptance rate they guarantee is 300%. And actually I received an offer from every school that I applied to meaning UAL, UCL and AA apart from Cambridge University but this one is not even worth our attention here. I have learned so much that it feels as if I was entering another world anytime I engage in any type of artistic work. I also got to know myself a bit better and expanded my capabilities of expressing myself, or simply want I want to express, through work. I learned that art is not as official as we sometimes take it because of external factors that bend our imagination in the wrong direction or even limit it. I am not afraid to try out new methods, techniques and topics. All of it lets me to be a bit child-like with myself thus allowing the brightest and richest development possible.