A breakthrough in my painting journey — for the first time, I painted with an open heart. A challenge. A deeply personal meaning — barriers: I look through the painting at the body, cleansing with iodine, incision, blood, the stopping of life… in order to save it — the heart. I paint it experimentally, transferring it onto the canvas. The artwork was created on sterile medical gauze; among other things, I painted using iodine. Sterilization materials became my medium in painting. I waited almost a year for this. I felt the need to cross boundaries, to experience, in order to paint the truth. The surgery was performed by the head of the hospital in Łódź — G. Religa, son of the late Professor Zbigniew Religa, who carried out the first successful heart transplant in Poland and in Europe. Six years ago, I painted his portrait, which now hangs in his first office at the hospital in Zabrze.