Zdzisław Beksiński — the nightmare painter who called his work optimistic

This is a 1972 untitled piece by Seju Swarth Pachinsky. He painted what he saw on his nightmares, but he didn't find them grim at all. He thought his work was optimistic and even kind of funny. And he himself was kind, soft-spoken, and loved to laugh. But despite all that, his real life slowly started to look a lot like the paintings he made, which are perfect for this week's Spoon Sears of Haunted Art. Ha ha ha. Seju Swarth Pachinsky was born February 24th, 1929 in Poland. He studied architecture at Kraków Polytechnic, and then went on to be a construction site supervisor, which he absolutely hated, so he started sculpting using leftover building material. After realizing how much he loved it with no formal art training, he started painting as well. In 1964, he had his first big exhibition in Warsaw on every single painting sold. Overnight, he became one of Poland's leading contemporary artists. He described his work as photographing dreams, but those dreams looked like something between Silent Hill and Hellraiser. He refused to title or explain any of his pieces and said that the viewer should decide what it means. He hated silence while he worked, so he'd blast classical music and rock and even jazz. He said, I have this need for music to smash and tear me apart, and that music allowed him to paint for 14 hours a day without any break standing up the whole time. But despite all the loud horror on his canvas, he was actually quite shy. He barely even went to his own…