“Between 1983 and 1985, I took part in plein-air painting on three occasions in the vicinity of Czestochowa, where I was born and which holds unhappy memories for me. I went there driven by a desire to test myself through these ‘returns’ to the places of my childhood, fully aware that, in order to remain true to myself, I must neither deny nor be ashamed of anything, nor forget.

Out of a longing to reconnect with the past, specifically in the landscapes around Czestochowa, which provided a natural setting for the painterly expression of a life in bygone times, the idea for the series ‘Jurabilder’ was born.

They are not illustrations of facts from those times, but images of places and events from childhood; images of dead people and bygone events that are so vividly present within us that they are almost part of our thoughts, words and actions.

These images of a bygone era are filled with a multitude of details that have been ‘lost’ in time and memory; ghostly figures that force themselves upon us, various objects—pathetic and lamentable symbols continually brought out from the national tombs and theatre storehouses of a poor romantic tradition.

I am no longer certain whether ‘Jurabilder’ represents a rejection or a fulfilment of the painterly experiences of that period—experiences that gradually evolved from ironic descriptions of the Polish countryside into socio-political ‘journalism’, and finally into more general conditions for a Polish form within my subjective perceptions. One thing, however, I am certain of: these ‘Jurabilder’ had to come into being, just like the earlier works.

And, like those works, they are mine. Instead of offering a more concrete description of ‘here and now’, I formulate them as reflections on transience, on life and death, and on everything that follows a person from childhood: the things that shape, spur and lead them onto wrong paths and towards barricades, both in their personal life and as a member of society.” – Duda Gracz, 1987.