A picture showing numerous members of my family, of whom I had the chance to meet only two people personally: my grandma – she did not live with us, and she died when I was 6, an event I do not remember very well – and my uncle Krzysiek, who passed away a few years ago, which I felt deeply because although we rarely met, we got on really well. Therefore, the bundle with my newly-born uncle is emotionally the closest to me in this scene. I wanted to emphasize this most important motif, but also to distinguish my own grandparents, without referring to realistic imaging. I decided that the part of the canvas, where there is a reference to my uncle, would be more intense in relation to the extended range of gray of the rest of the plane. Furthermore, the parts of my grandparents’ faces were supposed to be the most “alive” and realistic in relation to the others. After finding the appropriate – “noble” – shade of gray for the silhouettes, the solution for the whole turned out to be filling the background with “sauces” [heavy, dirty colors] of maximum possible thickness, and those laid like a “rainbow” – inter-penetrating one another. Until now, I have avoided these kinds of effects unconditionally – not only because I did not like them, but also because they are associated with 19th century painting, as in the famous phrase “Munich sauces”, shunned by the colourists; and after all, this is the 21st century. As for colorists – as far as I understand it - I am a colourist what – I hope – is obvious in this picture.
