The following brief explanation was contained in the booklet produced to accompany a Retrospective of Lenkiewicz's work in 1997.

"In all great deceivers a remarkable process is at work, to which they owe their power. In the very act of deception with all its preparations, the dreadful voice and face and gestures, amid the whole effective scenario they are overcome by their belief in themselves which then speaks so miraculously, so persuasively, to their audience... For men believe in the truth of all that is seen to be firmly believed." Nietzsche.

This project involved an unusually intense relationship between the painter and 'another person'. More accurately, this project involved an unusually intense relationship between the painter and himself. More accurately still, this project involved an unusually intense relationship between the painter and some aspect of 'aesthetic fascism'.

Lenkiewicz would meet Mary like clockwork at the Coop cafe. He would run back to the studio and immediately record with eccentric subjectivity a series of notes, written and visual, attempting to illustrate as incisively as he could the precise sensation, physiologically, of what had characterised the meeting. A sense of distance, an erotic innuendo - or was it? A twinge of jealousy, the closeness of the wall to the left of his head contrasting with the great space to his right. The sound of her voice, the way he felt he could balance on one leg on the end part of her laugh, the movements of her mouth, the flow of blouse against the curve of breast. Her running down the stairs with a black flapping coat, the rain outside, the fatigue of the waitress.... and on and on it went. Every transitory trivia, page after page, attempting to trap moments with the old familiar visceral smile.

All this led to a decision to present a complete project on The Painter with Mary. What became clear to Lenkiewicz was that it had nothing to do with Mary; she was to remain a mystery, as all 'others' are mysteries. What did become clear was that the painters' relationship with his own aesthetic vulnerability - known as Mary - was more likely to be a pot pourri of earlier memories kicked into touch by the sighting of 'a person'; with full mouth, blond hair, tall, slender, long-waisted, and entirely indifferent to him. An unrequited energy is the life-blood of creativity. Transcribing these impulses became a sacrificial act, a clear crisp methodology for imposing himself upon himself. It was like a 'scientific discovery', it could haunt the mind for its own sake, nothing to do with the 'other'. The notes were not shown or shared, at least, rarely so. Lenkiewicz found an 'idea' like a 'person' cannot be fixed, he could record only the passing by of things, and that rather poorly. The situation indicated that absorption, fanaticism, obsessive behaviour, lead to the same futility as ideological convictions. Indeed the project became a crossroad in Lenkiewicz's work, with the understanding that relationships do not solve the problem of existence.