Interview in "Pod Krakowem" montly

In the latest issue of "Pod Krakowem" (Kraków County magazine), I recommend an interview with me by editor Jan Bereza (to whom I send my regards:)
You can find the entire interview at: https://powiat.krakow.pl/.../pod-krakowem-nr-10-lipiec...
And here's an excerpt:
Jan Bereza: It's often said that artists like to have their head in the clouds. That's how your presentations of cities dominated by grand structures that... soar into the sky are. Aren't you afraid that the fall of such cities might be too painful? That the reality that brings dreams down to earth, to solid ground, might be too brutal? Looking at the paintings from the "Invisible Cities" series, one might have such concerns...
Marcin Kołpanowicz: The inspiration for the "Invisible Cities" series was a book of the same title by Italian writer Italo Calvino. While still a student, I created illustrations for it in the book graphics studio. Later, I began painting other cities—those Calvino didn't describe, but which draw on his poetics. I've always been fascinated by the interdependencies and connections between culture and nature. "The Stubble Field on Which San Francisco Is Built" is an example of civilization's triumph over nature, while the city of Manaus, devoured by the Amazon jungle, is the opposite—a triumph of nature over civilization. Sometimes people exploit natural conditions, carving their homes into the rock, as in Matera, Italy; sometimes volcanic lava floods the city, as happened when the eruption of Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. For me, the city is a metaphor for civilization, its labyrinthine structure, its repetition and hypertrophy. Also, its internal contradictions and terrifying complexity. In my paintings, I depict the entire spectrum of interactions between civilization and nature – there are cities rooted in rocks, cities built on clouds, washed by waterfalls, suspended on spiderwebs, built on a volcano or on the back of a gigantic antediluvian reptile… I believe this reflects the relationship between human civilization and nature – sometimes symbiosis, sometimes a neutral "existence alongside," most often a struggle. At the same time, the juxtaposition of unpredictable, wild nature with orderly, structured architecture depicts the human interior: our nature, primal instincts, drives, atavistic reactions, upon which we impose rational thought, the corset of culture, religious precepts, and conventions.