Untitled 1976

This untitled painting by Zdzislaw Beksinski is all about the weirdness of vision. It's a portal dreamscape rendered with delicate precision. The colours are subdued earth tones, rusts and murky greens, like a landscape seen through smoked glass. Look at how the paint is applied: thin layers, built up to create a smooth, almost polished surface. It’s so precise, yet the scene itself is utterly bizarre. A doorway opens onto a desolate landscape of rolling hills and ominous skies, while the foreground is dominated by these fleshy, tumor-like shapes. Are they rocks? Are they organisms? It's hard to tell. That doorway, though, is a marvel. It invites us into a space that’s both familiar and deeply unsettling. Beksinski reminds me a little of Goya, that same fascination with the grotesque, but filtered through a uniquely personal lens. Ultimately, this painting is a testament to the power of art to embrace ambiguity, to invite us into a world where fixed meanings dissolve.