Patrzą Na Nas 

Editor: This painting is titled "Patrz\u0105 Na Nas" by Kazimierz Mikulski, created with gouache. There's a strange, dreamlike quality to it... a kind of unsettling fairytale. What strikes you most when you look at it? Curator: Oh, the whimsy and the unease are like long-lost friends here! I'm immediately drawn to those floating eyes, peppered throughout the landscape, embedded in the bird itself even. Do you feel that sense of being watched, a sort of Panopticon of the natural world? The composition too... that low horizon line gives a sense of limitless sky. Editor: Absolutely! It's both innocent and a little creepy. The single-eyed figure in the foreground, the bird with eyes... it’s like a child's drawing that’s taken a sinister turn. Is that a common theme in Mikulski's work, do you think? Curator: Mikulski often played with this tension, dipping into the surreal and fantastic while maintaining a certain naiveté. Remember, he was part of the Krakow Group, deeply influenced by Surrealism and abstraction, but with a distinct Polish flavor—a bit darker, more poetic, you could say. But why do you call that figure sinister? Editor: Perhaps "sinister" is too strong. More...uncanny. It's the isolated eye, staring right at us, that makes me feel uneasy. It's the unexpected nature, it catches my attention. Curator: And that’s where the painting succeeds, I think. It invites us into this world, this...stage, where everything feels familiar yet distorted. Like a childhood memory, slightly twisted by time. That's it indeed! Editor: I hadn't thought of it that way, but I see what you mean. It's definitely given me a lot to think about regarding how something can be simultaneously charming and disturbing. Curator: Precisely, it is the tension that enlivens.