START POINT PRIZE – Prize for emerging artists

The exaggerated atmosphere of the individual shots are no less atmospheric as elements of the whole composition, though they may be troubling due to their emotional timbre, yet they are equally thought-provoking in their directness, which does not try to subvert the subjective but rather seeks to encompass it. In this way Lucia Sceranková’s photographs become symbolic representations which can be understood as dangerous, as easily accessible popular images or as moods that have become devoid of content through repeated use. It is precisely these representations that Sceranková is interested in, for their clear outlines and seemingly clear, yet faded content which offers to provide other relatively simple possibilities (though not as simple as they may at first appear) and expressions if one is capable of perceiving them directly. This new freedom of the image is useful above all for enhancing other strategies dealing with photographs and animated images, from appropriation to stage design, arrangement, illusion and collage, which Sceranková uses. We can intellectualize her self-portrait with a pony tail streaming out of her mouth through the work of Václav Stratil or Matthew Barney but in the end it leads us to a simple game of combining the front and back views. This step away from ubiquitous awareness and dependence on pre-existing examples is precious, it is not excessively calculated, despite the fact that it deals with shifting the context. It solves topical issues of the mutual relationship of reality, its representation and the representation of the image. (ej)