Vision That My Cousin Krzysio Palonka Had Back in 1970, When He Got Drunk As a Child
- papier-mache, modeling paste, acrylic paint
- 10.25 x 10.375 x 10.3125 in
- Adam Niklewicz
The three works in the Connecticut Artists Collection are shaped by my ongoing immigrant experience. My art is a blend of the visual vocabulary of my Polish childhood with American commercial and pop-cultural iconography. The mixture somehow assumes sculptural form and is given to paradoxes, absurdities, and (perhaps) some humor.
This work asks the question why a five-year-old, who gets tricked by an older sibling into having some home-made wine, begins to mumble about tiny soldiers gathering around his mouth. The incident took place in Poland, during a year when tanks appeared on the streets of two cities, to crush a surge of popular discontent with the communist rule. Was the political reality shaping the imagination of a small child by feeding it the symbols of totalitarian oppression?
- Created: 2004
- Current Location: DECD - 450 Plaza (not on view)
- Collections: Connecticut Artist Collection