Jacek Yerka, PICNIC ON KUCHEN STREETS, 2024

81,0 x 70,0 cm - acrylic, canvas signed p.d.: YERKA 24

On the reverse, on the lower strip of the loom signed in marker: JACEK | YERKA, next to: "PICNIC ON KITCHEN STEPS" | ACRYLIC 2024.



In the beginning there were stairs. Kitchen stairs. Frighteningly cold in winter and full of unusual smells in summer.

For a five-year-old, too steep and with steps too high. In several unpleasant dream nightmares, they were doused in a blue glow and dragged into the well of the stairwell.

Years later, I no longer feared them, but dreaming, I could get nowhere with them. The flights of stairs tangled, from the landings you could only go down, other night only up. In the end, I had to face it in the painting.

At the same time, two rooms away I was going on a long-distance trip quite regularly; I would take my supplies of cookies, favorite toys, beach accessories, something to defend myself and, fighting the waves and sea monsters, reach the couch after an hour.

At night, the door to the kitchen stairs creaked open and I was once again drawn into a bluish haze.... Years later, the nightmares happily faded away, and I remember the picnics, imaginary and real, as the best moments of my childhood.

In the painting, time and space are absolutely non-linear - next to the Edelweiss radio, a portable tube heterodyne, of which, as a child, I was very proud, a modern-day Bibi queen on the lower floors nibbles a pocket jungle, and a trilobite heads toward the invisible kitchen door.

A bonfire on the wooden stairs is not my idea. My granddaughter, having returned from scout camp, lit a very professional campfire on our covered wooden terrace. At the sight of our dismay, she resolutely replied that nothing could happen, because after all, she lit it on a large flower stand; the stand was plastic....

Jacek Yerka

Jacek Yerka (Toruń 1952, lives near Toruń) graduated in 1976 from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. He specialized in graphic arts. In the first years after graduation, he exhibited posters, including at the Biennale of Polish Poster in Katowice in 1977 and 1979, international biennials in Lahti and Warsaw, and others. Since 1980 he has devoted himself entirely to painting. Drawing on a precise pictorial technique based on the old masters (Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch), but above all on his own boundless imagination, he creates surreal compositions, especially admired by lovers of fantasy in all varieties. He inspired, for example, fantasy author Harlan Ellison to write 30 short stories, which, along with Yerka's paintings, made up the publication titled. "Mind Fields." The same American publishing house "Morpheus International" published the album "The Fantastic Art of Jacek Yerka". In 1995 the artist was awarded the prestigious World Fantasy Award for best artist. He exhibits at home and abroad (in Germany, France, the USA and others), being a respected representative of the fantastic art trend. He collaborated in the production of the American film "Strawberry Fields", where the images were to be accompanied by Beatles music.