START POINT PRIZE – Prize for emerging artists

Slavomír Ďurkaj’s paintings are a combination of the themes of the absurd, surrealism, darkness and also – in contrast to these – dehumanisation and indifference. The resulting impression can leave the viewer with contradictory feelings associated with the unpredictability of origin and how the events depicted on the canvas will continue to unfold. Realistically depicted unrealistic scenes combining bizarre environments and situations have a strong interpretative and narrative potential. The distinctive brushwork sets the artist apart from the established trends of young contemporary Slovak painting, which can primarily be identified based on the instructors of the studios where the young painters studied. Ďurkaj, who calls his painting “realisticschematic“, eludes categorisation and for now continues with his self-defined artistic rhetoric. In his language he criticises the views of contemporary society, in which the race for riches has become people’s most important value. At the same time his aim is to question common views of reality. (Lucia Gavulová)