SOURCE: “At Play in the Fields of the Weird: An Evocative Polish Surrealist Makes His American Debut,” in Omni, Vol. 16, No. 3, December, 1993, pp. 20, 24.

In the following review, Killheffer discusses Mind Fields, a compilation of artwork by Jacek Yerka and stories by Harlan Ellison.

Though the opening of the Eastern Bloc hasn't brought Eastern Europe the peace and prosperity many hoped for, it has afforded Polish artist Jacek Yerka (pronounced “Yahtzik Yurka”) a golden opportunity. In November of 1991, Yerka's agent/manager Elzbieta Lavastre reserved a small booth at the Los Angeles Contemporary Art Fair, which she might never have considered attending during the Cold War years. James Cowan, founder of Morpheus International, an art book publisher based in Beverly Hills, California, came upon Yerka's work at Lavastre's booth, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“I knew I was in the presence of a genius,” Cowan recalls. Among...