ABOUT
Maria Kossak is a Berlin-based multimedia and performance artist of Polish descent. She was born behind the Iron Curtain into a family of artists and writers. Due to the oppressive political climate and her family’s subsequent emigration, she found herself in West Berlin during the late Cold War period. Throughout the 1980s, the divided city became her childhood playground, and life in Berlin shaped not only her personal but also her artistic identity. Following family inclination, Kossak studied painting, photography and new media at the Sydney College of Arts in Australia, and visual and performance art at the University of Fine Arts (UdK) in Berlin, from which she graduated with special honors. For the past two decades she has lived and worked in the district of Neukölln.
Artist portrait by Peter C. Theis © KOSSAK Fine Art Studio @ Bildhauerwerkstatt Berlin-Wedding 02.11.2026 - with many thanks to Nika Bakhia.
Since childhood, Kossak has lived with chronic illness, bringing episodes of severe immobility and excruciating pain. Moving between strength and stillness, she has come to understand impermanence and limitation not as endpoints but as the ground from which resilience and renewal emerge.
Kossak’s art has been exhibited within and outside of Europe and is represented in international collections. Dr. Joanna Kiliszek, curator
selected press articles
20 JAHRE EXBERLINER
"wings of desire" excerpt - Der Himmel über Berlin
Exberliner: celebratory issue, published in summer 2022
"... »She holds the world but as the world – A stage where every angel plays their part…«
Berlin 128 – Magazine
Interview excerpt - Kultur im Dienste des Staates
Text: Monika Stefanek, published in spring 2016, Berlin/ Germany
"... »Nationalistische Rhetorik weckt natürlich Erinnerungen an die dunklen Zeiten in Europa«, sagt Maria Kossak.
KULTURTIEGEL
Maria Kossak, Neuköllns Goldfinger
Marek Staszyc, published autumn 2015, Lodz/Poland – Link zum Artikel
POLITYKA
Polen-Berlin-Witkacy
Text: Anna Tyszecka. Erschienen im Sommer 2015, Warschau/Polen
POLITYKA
Doppelidentitäten
Text: Anna Tyszecka. Erschienen im Sommer 2014, Warschau/Polen












