Sun on the Grass 

Curator: Well, here we are in front of Iwo Zaniewski's puzzling artwork "Sun on the Grass." It’s hard to put a precise date on its creation. What do you make of it initially? Editor: Peaceful unease, actually. The colours are pleasant—those grassy greens, muted blues, sunny yellows. But there's something...off. A strange simplicity that borders on caricature, or maybe the lack of definition? Is that a swimming pool levitating? Curator: Yes! Zaniewski certainly plays with spatial ambiguity here. Using a curious impasto, the shapes have a nearly surreal feeling—note the ambiguous shadows that flatten depth. The semiotic game is complex; there is no clear relation. I am intrigued by those suspended scroll shapes. Editor: It does feel abstracted, nearly expressionist. Those swirls are so unnatural, though they seem meant to add dynamism...they just contribute to that sense of unease. A lovely kind of disturbing? Like a half-remembered dream. There is no visual hierarchy. Curator: Indeed. Look at the modernist geometry against the loose impasto strokes. Zaniewski seems to juxtapose formal restraint with unbridled emotive painting; in one spot the paint is built up nearly an inch. I imagine they revel in contrasting texture here—a testament to Zaniewski’s versatility. Editor: I wouldn’t say versatile, more that they couldn't pick a stylistic lane? And that adds to my slightly troubled reading of it, though it's captivating, certainly. The painting seems suspended, dreamlike, not photorealistic—in contrast with other Zaniewski portraits. And what IS that dark form, just dominating in that space. I hate to be trite, but is someone supposed to be lying in repose? Reading? Why am I seeing such dark shadow here when all is illuminated, even strangely abstracted by the 'Sun'? Curator: Its ambiguity is its strength! What looks like leisure is undercut by surrealism and those disconcerting compositional elements. Zaniewski challenges our interpretation. Well, this painting really made us consider our position as beholders, wouldn’t you say? Editor: Absolutely! I started off confused, maybe slightly critical and a touch uneasy—now, well, now I want to stare at it for a week. Thanks for nudging my perspective here.