Two young men, one British, one Polish - both of whom will turn thirty in the nineties. Each, in his own way, represents the future.
Stephen Conroy's first one man show at London's prestigious Marlborough Fine Art Gallery last June attracted more press attention and critical acclaim than any artist in his early twenties had since David Hockney burst on the art world in the sixties.
Critics noted traces of Seurat, Sickert, Degas, and Hopper in Conroy's work. The Spectator's Giles Auty thought that Hopper via Caravaggio served as a shorthand description of some of Conroy's interiors.
Michal Kowalski (whose other works appear beginning on page 300) grew up in Poland in the long gray, grim years, which have marked all his adult paintings. In 1986 he settled in Paris and began painting seriously. Last summer, at his first one-man show, all his works were sold on the opening day.
If Conroy represents a return to an earlier, more painterly tradition, Kowalski's work in the Abstract Expressionist vein reflects the angst of his bleak Polish years.
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