Mikrotyki – snapshots of everyday life. Realism and reflectivity of stories by Paweł Sołtys

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present the artistic and cognitive values of Mikrotyki, as well as to determine the nature of the spaces that define everyday life – the past and the present. The accumulation of memories to which the author returns in his micro-paintings creates a metaphysical platform for reliving and re-experiencing what has passed. The unconventionality of the form, based on the disharmony of the thematic and linguistic layers, implies the need to answer questions regarding the conceptual and interpretative meaning of this procedure. As a contemporary creator of Polish prose, Paweł Sołtys proposes a reflective version of realism, constructed, just like everyday life, on the basis of many contradictions and “disagreements”. Although focused on microbiographies and micro-events, Sołtys’s stories are open works – their reflective and interpretative potential does not disappear after the end of reading.