Trust Your Instinct: The Medals of Danuta Solowiej
- Date
- 09 Nov 2026 · 6:00PM - 8:00PM
- Price
- In-person event: £15 (includes a glass of wine or soft drink)
Online event: £7 - Venue
- The Goldsmiths' Centre, London EC1M 5AD / Online (via Zoom), UK time
- Programme type
- Talks
‘To trust your instinct is easier said than done’, suggests artist and medallist Danuta Solowiej. Instinctive behaviour might lie at the heart of life, but for artists instinct is there to be identified, challenged or embraced. In this talk in collaboration with the British Art Medal Society (BAMS), Danuta will take us on a journey, from east to west, and from one hometown to another, as she traces her creative practice and story through medals, exploring how she has had to trust her instinct along the way.
The intimacy of this journey is reflected in the intimacy of art medals: they are miniature sculptures to hold in the hand. They carry stories and commemorate people and events, as portraits, conceptual or abstract works. Danuta’s sensitive yet exciting approach to creating medals has led her to win many awards and commissions. In this talk, she will share details of the collaboration and creative planning behind these projects and how they relate to, and interact with, her broader bodies of work. Today, her work is held in prominent international collections, including the British Museum, the V&A and the Goldsmiths’ Company Collection.
This talk is held at the Goldsmiths’ Centre in collaboration with the British Art Medal Society. The Society supports medallists and sculptors, particularly students and early-career medallists, in their practice of making art medals. The Society organises regular meetings and conferences and gives advice to individuals or companies who wish to commission medals.
FAQs:
In person, you're welcome from 6pm for a glass of wine or a soft drink before Danuta starts speaking at 6.30pm, with the evening running through to 8pm.
Online, the Zoom link opens at 6.30pm for the talk itself, finishing at 7.30pm. The online event is a shorter, talk-only version of the evening, with no networking portion.
We run our events in person at the Goldsmiths' Centre and online, so that as many of our community as possible can exchange ideas, learn from industry experts, and form valuable connections across the UK. The online ticket gives you a live link to the talk, but the session isn't recorded and therefore won't be available to watch afterwards. This is to encourage the open sharing of ideas and experiences and preserve confidentiality. Popular topics will be repeated over time.
We are committed to making our training programmes and events as inclusive and accessible as possible. If you have any access requirements, please inform us as early as possible so we can make the necessary arrangements. While we will do our best to accommodate your needs, advance notice is essential to ensure we can provide appropriate support. To discuss your requirements when booking tickets, please contact us at boxoffice@goldsmiths-centre.org
Who is the speaker?
Danuta Solowiej is a Polish-born artist. Her art education started with tapestry and painting at the Fine Arts Lyceum in Suprasl and was followed by MA in Sculpture at the Fine Arts Academy in Warsaw, where she was introduced to medallic art in Zofia Demkowska’s studio. She arrived in London on the eve of 1988 and was then an inaugural student of the Contemporary Art Medal course at the Royal College of Art, where she was later a visiting lecturer. Since her arrival in London, she has been an active member of BAMS. She served on BAMS council and was involved with setting up and running of the Student Medal Project as well as the New Medallist Scheme. In 2023 she received The Marsh Award for her contribution to the Encouragement of Medallic Art. She served on the Goldsmiths’ Company Modern Collection Committee and is a Freeman of the Company.
Solowiej works in several media and techniques, but modelling and polychromy are her preferred choices. Her focus on the tactile aspects of sculpture is reflected in the hand-held scale of her work. Exhibiting, teaching and making come in no particular order of preference, as she finds that they influence and nurture each other. Over the years she has received a number of awards and commissions, some of which are represented in national and private collections worldwide, and include Alfons Karny Museum in her hometown Bialystok, in the UK: the V&A, the British Museum, The Hunterian, the Goldsmiths’ Company Collection and the Royal Collection. She won several awards for her modelling skills at the Goldsmiths’ Craft & Design Council competitions, notably Gold Award for Max Rainey portrait. Significant solo exhibitions include Traces of Feelings which toured Poland in 1997/98 and the Recall exhibition at the V&A in 2001. Her plaster heads from her Witnesses series were shown in the British Museum’s 2018-19 exhibition Witnesses: émigré medallists in Britain, along with a selection of medals from the museum’s collection.
Instagram: @danutasolowiej