Mathilda Milik

Born in Paris to artist parents of Irish and Polish heritage, Mathilda Milik received her foundational training under a professional master painter in France, developing an academic grounding in painting from childhood. At eleven, she painted a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and presented it personally to Her Majesty at Windsor Castle to mark her Golden Jubilee. After receiving her BA (Hons) in International Events Management from Regent’s University London, she received a diploma as “Consultant Spécialiste du Marché de l’Art” from Drouot Formation IESA Paris, later channelling that expertise into co-founding OCTARR.

Her work spans painting, photography, writing, installation and performance, moving between minimal, meditative registers and dense, psychedelic intricacy. Rooted in Surrealist automatism, soul portraiture and abstraction, it is always accompanied by her own poetry and texts. Speaking seven languages, she is attuned to the way meaning shifts across time, and her work returns persistently to what is invisible or disappearing (overlooked gestures, energy, the degradation of the natural world, ancient wisdom) and to the weight of thought and action within an interconnected whole.

In 2023, she was selected as one of only six artists from over two thousand applicants to paint live at Boom! Festival in Portugal, having successfully argued for the visionary nature of her work before the selection panel. Her exhibition history includes a successful 2018 sale in collaboration with Maison Barthet at Drouot auction house in Paris, group exhibitions at Espace 33, Paris (2019) and Galerie Véronique Koutouzi, Paris (2021–2022), and the solo exhibition Méditations Visuelles at the CPA Annie Fratellini, Paris (2023).

Her work is held in private collections in the UK, France, Belgium and Switzerland. She works between the Loire Valley, Paris and London.