WATERCOLORS

Vatek

“Vatek” appears to be my first watercolor painting — a piece that marked the beginning of an entirely new phase in my artistic life. After completing it, I began working actively in watercolor and gradually moved away from pen‑and‑ink and the pointillism technique.

I painted this small work one evening in the town of Żagań, where I was staying on a business trip while restoring ornamental murals in the entrance hall of a neo‑Gothic hospital. Both the image itself and the title, “Vatek,” refer to the the strange, feverish novel Vathek by the once‑famous English writer William Beckford, a book I loved in my youth.