I experienced my first real trauma when my parents divorced in 1992. I was 10 years old as a result of the divorce. My dad moved out and moved in with his parents. My mom and I moved out of our flat in the small town outside of Warsaw called Pruszkow, we moved into a flat in Warsaw right next to my grandmother and my stepdad moved in with us.
On top of that I was taken out of my primary school and moved to a new one.
Nobody asked me what I thought or what I wanted there were no child therapists at that time it was post communist times and children were meant to be seen but not heard.
My parents had me in the early 20s they had no clue what they were doing, they were children themselves and raised me as a baby according to a book by a psychopath Dr Spock, who recommmende to leave children alone and crying in the dark bedroom until they realise nobody’s coming and they eventually fall asleep.
When I was 12 my stepdad noticed a hunch on my back and I was diagnosed with scoliosis with vertebral rotation.
At that time I had to undertake special treatment I had to go to learn to do special exercises during the summer instead of having a nice normal holiday like other kids. I had to practice mundane boring tedious exercises to strengthen the muscles around my back and to strengthen my core. I had a journal, which I used to rigorously fill out spilling out my sorrows. As I am a very dedicated student I managed to exercise enough to develop very strong muscles and stop the scoliosis progressing without surgery. However the pain related to my back keeps reappearing in various stages of my life, usually in relation to stress and many hours of working in a seated position.
I think I am fascinated by human torso, especially the twisted ones, especially the ones that look like they’re extremely twisted or torsos of people with hyper flexibility. I find them extremely beautiful and fascinating. I love exaggerated poses with spines twisted so unnaturally that hips and ribcage seem to be touching each other. I love to translate that into drawing and painting. It’s a bit an obsession of mine, I always seem to choose focusing on the torso and skipping heads and faces.