I want something from life

Are you busy at the moment?

A lot - and it's cool because it's been quite ghastly lately, my grandmother died and my dog died.

I've started working for TVP, I'm even appearing on air there. I draw live on the programme Kwiatki polskie [Polish Flowers], for which, by the way, I did the graphic design.

Like Edward Lutczyn in the 1990s!

Or Henryk Sawka or Szymon Kobyliński.

Now it's handled by a man of my age, I felt old. What exactly did you do for TVP Info?

The virtual set design, the logo. Generally the programme is dominated by my drawings, I feel strange about it, but I'm also proud of it. I heard the slogan that you can do anything on TVP now, so I got into it. I found that since I'm almost forty, I'm ready to show my face on TV. I want something from life.

Until recently, you didn't often show up.

That change came last year in Gdańsk, where I was a speaker at a festival of illustration. I had a lecture there with visuals in a church - lots of people, but I couldn't see anyone because there was an altar in front of me. That performance gave me a kick. Before, I was ashamed to speak out loud in front of an audience. I realised that I don't have a problem with that anymore. For that, the conversations at openings are a disaster for me.

Because they are direct conversations?

I love preparing exhibitions, sitting on them for hours in the gallery, but when I have to talk about it afterwards, I simply run away. I'm always inviting friends and later regretting it because they want to talk to me. People can get offended by that.

Does an artist need to sshow a face to promote their work?

Popularity seems to me to be very important now, the world has become ‘stiktok’. We live in a time of ‘showing your face’. I think it's inevitable. I don't have an agenda myself, I act spontaneously. People used to ask me if I was stupid for being an artist known from the internet. It wasn't. But it's also a no-brainer that the internet, and Instagram in particular, is some great place for art. It probably depends on how actively you do it. You certainly have to be spidering to get clicks. Such a Wilhelm Sasnal has set up an account on Instagram, but someone runs it for him - well, he doesn't have followers there... The question is rather: why does such a Sasnal need Instagram? His works sell without it.

Do yours sell because of it? Do you sell a lot of works? Is it possible to make a living from it?

Last year I sold really quite a lot. This year less, you can see that people have less money. I do a lot of other things, so I don't tend to live solely from selling works. I'm used to diversifying my earnings, counting on profit from selling works is dependent on too many factors and people.

And if you sold enough to make a living out of it, would that be your one dream job?

It certainly wouldn't. I have ADHD, I have to do a lot of different things. For this reason, for example, I started dancing with the band Chair.

In a mask.

Normally I don't like dancing. With this mask it fires up a different personality in me, I get out of my comfort zone, it's rewarding. I always wanted to have a rock band, but I have no musical talent. My partner Magda says that my whole life is theatre, that life with me is an improvised theatre workshop, so this is also where I fulfil myself, because I can't stand normal theatre.

You recently illustrated a children's book.

With Marta Lipczyńska-Gil I did the book ‘Liczyć każdy może! Ja, ty i Bąk Bolek’. My works are also often bought as gifts for children. They seem to understand my line well. I like sitting in watercolours, after years of drawing in black and being the Jerzy Beres of Polish drawing I have taken a new liking to colour. Now, together with my partner, I am preparing a children's book about the death of our dog. This death was somehow liberating, it brought me closer to nature, I understood that she is the only power in this world. We will all die and the world will go on, it's liberating. In any case, I became more sensitive to nature and therefore to colours.

Maybe this is how old age begins.

Maybe I've just matured. A plot of land, a wheelbarrow, a goat. In six years' time we'll finish paying off the loan, maybe it's time to sell the flat and move out to the countryside?

Before you start packing, tell us a bit more about your collaboration with PURO.

I prepared a poster in connection with PURO's presence at Warsaw Gallery Weekend. This year it is a drawing depicting the classic outfit for an opening - there is an umbrella, because it usually rains, there is a leather coat and a cylinder. I am preparing a project on vernissage culture. I have started an anthropological research. I watch VHSs of vernissage events - people in turtlenecks, in black, closed body posture... Well, there are a lot of these vernissage personalities. The poster for PURO is at the same time such a small teaser of the upcoming exhibition.

Bolesław Chromry

Cartoonist, painter, illustrator and poet. He has published several books, held dozens of exhibitions and published several thousand drawings about the obscure side of life. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and lives in Warsaw's Praga district. A veteran of everyone's age crisis. Loves dogs and the band Happy Mondays.