Assistants: Edyta Kowalewska, Błażej Malewicki, Paweł Rischka, and Adam Dereszkiewicz.

The mural is inspired by the medieval altarpiece The Last Judgment by Hans Memling, the most important artwork among all Gdańsk collections. The original painting was commissioned by the Florentine Medici family and came to Gdańsk thanks to the privateer Paweł Beneke, who seized it off the Flemish coast in 1472. Interestingly, Beneke carried out the capture from the caravel Peter of Gdańsk, one of the largest vessels striking fear across the medieval seas.

In its form, the mural references Piotr Szwabe’s first work in the Zaspa Collection — the pixelated Lech Wałęsa from 2008. Szwabe’s Last Judgment consists of around 4,500 “pixels” painted using a palette of 40 colors.

Artist words:

“This is my original concept, and one of the inspirations is the current ‘Memling Year’ celebrations. We are painting a fragment depicting the weighing of good souls. In the original painting, there is a good side and an evil side — I chose the good one, although in the background there will be a few small figures from the evil world, eager to cross over to the good side. This is primarily a reference to the world of politics. It will be colorful, but I hope the work will make some Gdańsk residents think. The mural will be composed of pixels, giving it a modern form, close to computer graphics. It would make no sense to attempt a copy of such a perfect masterpiece created by Memling.”