START POINT PRIZE – Prize for emerging artists
- Johannes felder / don juan campos (DEU)
- Iulian Bisericaru (ROM)
- Noam darom (ISR)
- Fen de Villiers (BEL)
- Jon Derganc (SVN)
- KATARZYNA DITRICH – PATURALSKA (POL)
- Slavomír Ďurkaj (SVK)
- David Michel fayek (ITA)
- Petra Hermanová (CZE)
- ISTVÁN MARIÁS AKA HORROR PISTA (HUN)
- Ján Kekeli (SVK)
- Dimitra Kondylatou (GRC)
- Aleksi Linnamaa (FIN)
- Andrei Mateescu (ROU)
- JOOST MELLINK (NLD)
- Christoph Franz, Michael Meier (DEU, AUT)
- Jorge Moneo Quintana (ESP)
- Anja Münch (DEU)
- Artur Niestroj (DEU)
- Cecilia Nygren (SWE)
- Noële Ody (AUT)
- Benjamin Orlow (GBR)
- Frank Merkx, Robert Goywaerts (BEL)
- Teodora Rogoz (ROM)
- Matti Schulz (DEU)
- Camilla Skibrek (NOR)
- Pavel Sterec (CZE)
- Kateřina Sudolská (CZE)
- Ismael Teira (ESP)
- Britta Thie (DEU)
- christopher tym (GBR)
- Katinka van Gorkum (NLD)
- Ondrej Vozárik (SVK)
- Stefanie Walk (DEU)
- thomas yeomans (GBR)
- Paweł Zawadski (POL)
- Aline Zeltner (CHE)
Slavomír Ďurkaj
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)