Michał Walczyk
Born in 1993 in Poland, Michał Walczyk, known by his artistic moniker “Pan Mis” – Mr. Teddy Bear – resides and creates in his parents’ home in the Silesian town of Szczawno-Zdrój, near the Czech border. Afflicted by neurological disorders, he lacks an understanding of time, mathematics, or the mechanics of money. Within his workshop, Pan Mis gives life to his creations – burned wooden figurines that straddle the line between comic book superheroes and Slavic mythology.
To this are added hundreds of drawings made with ballpoint pen and colored pencil, depicting these same figures and many others—demons, zombie historians, cannibals, werewolves. Each is annotated on the reverse with biographical notes blending humor (intentional or otherwise) and hallucinatory detail. These drawings weave a vast epic, a personal mythology born of a child hailing from the edges of a nation deeply scarred by the tragedies of History. “What struck me most,” says Pan Mis’s brother, Maciej, “was when Michał described a dream in which all the figurines he had sculpted came to life and called him ‘father.’”
Though often strange or unsettling, his works are imbued with vibrant colors and dramatic intensity, reflecting his rich and dichotomous inner world—a universe he calls “the planet of Mr. Teddy Bear.”
Exhibited several times in Poland, it is presented in France for the first time at the gallery.
