DOT. Contemporary Art Gallery
Bratislava, Slovakia

Paintings of Kristina Mésároš are mainly based on stories. In her work, she is often exploring the idea of finding inner freedom through poetic fantasy scenes where natural environment plays an important role and holds the hidden hints of previous or future events. Her own impressions and memories inspire her for creating poetry-saturated scenes, in which the environment interacts with the human figure. Paintings of Kristina Mésároš consist of a combination of several approaches linking personal authenticity, at times certain naivety of ideas and innovation in the creation process. She is inviting us to unleash those places in our minds that can perceive beauty of unnoticed details, decrypt metaphorical language and treasure short, fast-fleeting moments.

The ever-changing river of life, flowing irreversibly in time and metaphysical values, volatile, abstract and elusive, are motifs and themes the author keeps returning to. They represent a paradox - something unsteady, and yet existing for ages. Just as it is impossible to grasp space without material things, one cannot grasp time without events.  From those events, the author is able to abstract or select the elements, which's meanings are defined by her personal life experiences. There is no river without stones, just as there is no life without obstacles.

"I’ve loved the forest since I was little. I would often go there alone for walks as a child. I would search for swamps or any body of water. The nature calmed me down, it gave me an opportunity and space to think. It was often a sanctuary or a place where the possibilities to create my own world were simply endless.." - Kristína Mésároš

Among Ľubomíra‘s work we can find radiant Fauvist drawings as well as dark monochrome paintings, but in almost every work she places emphasis on light aspects. It is light, as well as music, that are absolutely the starting points for Ľubomíra's work and life.

The formally crystallized and recognizable artistic handwriting of the author complements the consistent ideological content, which represents primarily the landscape - rugged nature and its wild fauna, as well as light phenomena and effects in the form of fire and night lighting, electric shock, laser beams, or even in depicting supernatural and mystical aura. She merges the subjects of man and nature, meditation, occult and opens the question of the current and traditional position of spirituality. The figure in the works of Ľubomíra Sekerášová is contemporary and the landscape in which its protagonists are situated evokes a romanticizing impression in terms of composition.

Using visual language, she retells situations she has lived with all her life: images full of darkness and harshness, but also poetic stillness and beauty of her homeland. Her personal mythology looms over her art, inspired by spirituality, supernatural occurrences, sci-fi, witchcraft and paganism. These strange effects are mixed with metaphysical state of paranoia, delusion and terrifying phenomena. The uncertainty arising from those supernatural effects is transformed into misterious scenes loaded with ambiguity, metamorphosis and eeriness, which visually resists clichés.

The intertwining expressive painting and drawing approaches in vibrant colors in contrast to the black-and-white monochrome with an emphasis on the drama of light creates romantic mysterious stories, the content of which deliberately both arises and disappears due to the impossibility of grasping the situation and disappearance into optical illusions.

At the beginning of his artist career, Michal Černušák’s paintings can be characterized by the scenes of city which is illuminated by artificial lighting and advertising boards. The static urban sceneries are later destabilized by an explosion and catastrophes, or by clashing crowds of people, captured by absent mass media optics.

Approximately from 2010, Černušák’s painting gradually moved towards fragmentation and swirling in rich baroque dynamic compositions. The mixture of architectural elements, consumer goods and pop culture painted on an oversized canvas create an impression of a levitating or a collapsed world.

These impressions are reinforced in his most recent paintings which feature groups of diving ‘artefacts seekers’ who swim among the artefacts. In parallel with this fragmentation, there is a contrast in Černušák’s other work where one observes a rising status of power holders in economic and political sense. Figures – such as businessmen wearing suits, politicians or advertising bosses but also a crowd of people in the street are featured with glowing eyes – as mysterious, conspiring entities which are controlling the only stable structures of this world – unvarying manufactories for goods or work-force.

The artworks of Michal Černušák questions the society and its foundation, in an alarming but impressive manner. Surreal depictions serve as a commentary to the present moment and lead a viewer into reflecting and contemplating of what would normally be an automatic perception of modern life’s aspects.

Michal received his formal education at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (2006). In 2007, Michal received a Special Essl Art Award; in 2006, he was a finalist in VUB painting of the year competition. His work is represented in the public collections of Bratislava City Gallery, in the collections of Albertina Museum, European Central Bank and in the ESSL collection. He lives and works in Bratislava.