In fact, Mr Rycharski began to consider his own sexuality in his work only recently. Four years ago he left cosmopolitan Krakow, having decided the city wasn’t for him. His goal was to tell the story of Poland’s rural communities, often disparaged as backward and philistine. Mr Rycharski won over local villagers with street art, decorating homes, barns and public spaces with images of hybrid animals, part wild and part domesticated. In 2014 he celebrated the 150th anniversary of the abolition of Poland’s feudal system by erecting a rainbow-coloured triumphal arch outside a neighbour’s home.

It may wind up in galleries across Europe, but his art is almost always displayed on Polish farmland first. His favourite project merged his two worlds. After a string of Polish villages declared themselves LGBTQ-free zones, last year Mr Rycharski persuaded five families in rural areas to invite LGBTQ visitors to stay for a few days. The most striking exhibit in Vienna is a tapestry depicting one of these hosts, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, with mechanical farm equipment splayed behind him like the wings of an angel.

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