Polish illustrator and designer Agata Królak is a compulsive creative. She illustrates and designs for children of all ages, playing with a great variety of visual narratives and currently focusing on whittling and ceramics. In 2018, she earned her PhD in illustration and visual literacy at the Fine Arts Academy in Gdańsk, where she now serves as a teacher in the Graphic Design Department.
 
For her Zócalo Sketchbook, Królak brings us a series of living things outgrowing their spaces: A plant breaks out of its pot, as fungi and flowers also root and sprout. A rose stretches toward a chalice, and a light to the clouds. A final illustration shows a scene of quarantine abandoned—we can only hope that its central human—now fully vaccinated—has transplanted themselves outside their home to enjoy a breath of fresh air. Teasingly simple, Królak’s whimsical shapes in California-compatible pastels read like summertime hieroglyphs and hint at a post-pandemic future.