Black Floor 

Editor: So, we’re looking at "Black Floor," by Iwo Zaniewski. Acrylic and oil on canvas. It's… intense, wouldn't you say? All these ghostly, almost dissolving figures and then BAM – that massive, unnerving void in the middle. What is even going on here? What do you make of this, of the almost unbearable nothingness emanating from it? Curator: Nothingness is something, isn’t it? This piece feels incredibly personal, almost like stepping into Zaniewski's memory. I see a room, a domestic space, fragmented by time and emotion. The figures seem trapped in amber, while that "void," as you call it, could be absence, loss, the unsaid… it dominates the canvas like a gaping maw. Does the monochrome simplicity frighten or invite you? Editor: Frightens, definitely. It feels… oppressive. But then there’s the figuration around the black, giving it almost a… portrait-like quality. What do you think that says, that this portrait style frames emptiness, instead of fullness? Curator: Interesting observation. Perhaps the “portrait” isn't of a person, but of a feeling, a state of being. Think of it like a negative space shaping our perception, the inky void amplifying the fragile figures that populate its periphery. Does the work, for you, shift at all when you realize you, yourself, the viewer, must step into this emptiness to complete the puzzle? Editor: Whoa, that's heavy. I initially saw it as solely about the artist's inner world, but framing it like *I* have a role, that changes everything. I was a bit cold on this piece to begin with, now my view has definitely evolved… Curator: That's the beauty of art, isn't it? It's a mirror, reflecting back our own questions and fears, making tangible what's long left unspoken. Perhaps its purpose is that by accepting there is no clear narrative or beginning and end to be found we find ourselves as artists alongside Zaniewski?