Classic figurative painting is given a glamorous and ghostly aura by Polish artist Łukasz Stokłosa

For Polish artist Łukasz Stokłosa, beauty comes laced with a decadent decay. In the richly rendered interiors of his work, markers of obscene wealth – opulent rooms, embroidered dresses, golden carriages – are viewed through a darkened lens.

Stokłosa’s paintings are haunting interpretations of the classical works of old masters. We recognise the symbols of wealth, but in a gothic shifting of perspective, we can’t quite place them.

‘In this work, I’m focusing more on the object itself, on its seductive attractiveness,’ says Stokłosa. ‘But this beauty is somehow diminished, blurred, so that we have to stop, look closely, and make sure of what we are actually seeing. So that we must check what lies beneath the gilding, that perhaps these are not just innocent objects locked away in museum cases, but histories that are often difficult. I have always been interested in ambiguity, in the interpenetration of histories.’

The artist brings an uncanny element to his figurative works. A self-professed interest in mass culture, including movies, television and genres such as film noir, is translated into deliciously ambiguous works crammed with ghostly apparitions and ostentatious privilege. ‘It is important to me that these objects are, in a sense, extracted, that in the painting there is only one subject, one protagonist,’ Stokłosa adds. ‘The small format of the paintings also forces us to approach them closely. This builds an intimate relationship with the work; suddenly, we are left alone with it.’

In the exhibition ‘Once Upon a Time’ at London’s Rose Easton (until 25 October 2025), Stokłosa brings his protagonists’ world to life through both painting and video works. The latter, created from found footage taken from the 1976 Polish film Tredowata (The Leper), considers the devastating consequences of a world defined by a strict hierarchy. In the film, a potential marriage between a governess and an aristocrat becomes painfully undone.

‘The Leper is a kind of phenomenon in Poland,’ says the artist. ‘It’s broadcast on television almost every holiday. Because of that, I think I’ve seen it, in full or in fragments, probably a dozen times already. At some point, I felt it could be a good subject and material for creating video works. What struck me most was that the structure of this story is very close to the structure of a classical fairy tale. A governess falls in love with a prince, and as we know, that cannot end well.’

Stokłosa overlaps images from the film in a three-screen video that rewrites the classic fairy tale and subsequent happy ending. ‘I have surrounded the motif of The Leper with other themes,’ he says. ‘A kind of collection of props started to form, objects that are beautiful, but because of their exclusivity and preciousness, also dangerous.’

‘Once Upon a Time’ is at Rose Easton, London until 25 October 2025, roseeaston.com