Kačmarek’s paintings make it possible to trace the legacy of animal painting up to the present day, placing his own cow at the center. In this case, it is tied to a large stone so it cannot move or wander away, motionless as it dominates both the canvas and the gallery space with the direct gaze of a beast that is deeply human. The comparison with Paulus Potter’s young bull or Mark Tansey’s cow is unavoidable: the two look at one another. A similar effect appears in a series of canvases focused on a sturdy ram, a pair of distracted roe deer, a hen with a worm just pulled from the earth, a partridge, and even an eagle. In each work, the animal is the clear subject, set against a secondary background of meadow, farmland, a farm, open countryside, or perhaps a forest suggested in the distance. Stormy skies run through the series, creating a charged atmosphere of damp light and dense, mysterious air. Ricardo Forriols, Universitat Politècnica de València.