In Our Hero, Marcin Glod combines personal heritage with European history. At the centre of the composition stands Jan III. Sobieski, who, as commander of the Polish forces, played a decisive role in the relief of Vienna in 1683. Rather than presenting the historical figure as a conventional heroic portrait, Glod translates him into a fragmented, contemporary visual language.

The repeated image of the mounted knight refers to the army and the collective dimension of the historical event. Weapons, landscape and elements of Vienna’s cityscape appear throughout the composition, while the addition of St. Stephen’s Cathedral anchors the scene firmly within Vienna.

Particularly striking is the red spray-painted inscription amore / armor. The visual ambiguity between love and armour creates a deliberate tension between war, protection, passion and human connection. The raw spray-paint gesture simultaneously breaks with the historical subject and brings it into the visual vocabulary of Street Art and contemporary painting.

Art historically, Glod combines elements of historical portraiture with Pop Art, Urban Art and expressive painting. The work also carries a deeply personal dimension: as a Polish-born artist who grew up in Vienna, Glod connects two cultural identities, transforming a historical event into a personal reflection on European memory and belonging.

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