The Ik is my first 120x150cm canvas. Earlier I painted on square boards 100x100cm, and before on boards and canvas of various sizes. The format became unified while moving away from the Human Landscapes series, macabre paintings of illness, destruction and death, towards the Screens series. Soon the TV screen motif was replaced by collaged vignettes which were often tied to main figures with strings and bands, usually red. In the portrait TwinTowers, a red string around my brother’s neck ties his body to the WorldTradeCenter.

In the early seventies the title Who’s Afraid of The Little Red Mouse? upset directors of state-run galleries, and Helmut’s figure in the bathtub outraged a Warsaw censor. As I worked on the triptych, I wanted to be a realist. Today I am aware of the picture’s tongue-in-cheek character and that its narrative foreshadows the installation Within Our Four Walls. The Screens series are based on the contrast between the viewer and the TV screen. The woman in Black Cat is watching a scene from the Warsaw ghetto, the woman in Beach a scene of vacationing.