Through the layers

Gallery 19
Lazaretská 19, Bratislava

Exhibiting authors: Martin Druska, Lucia Kupcová, Vanesa Šamajová, Klára Mária Švorcová, Sofia Tokošová

Curator: Žofia Dubová

The sphere of glass painting is still somewhat of a homeless person in the art world. The duality arises from a position between the used and the free. Its roots can be found in the field of decoration, but the space that is gradually being created here already belongs to the free arts. The glass sheet as a base and the glass colors that need to be fired bring problems - and therefore also the possibilities of solutions that are very specific, original and innovative. You have to think in individual layers, be able to imagine their addition or overlapping. Light, shine, matt, transparency and the mass of glass itself also come into play here. Patience and a feeling for the material are essential.

Within the Slovak context, we follow up on larger exhibition projects: Knowing, Seeing, Painting / Glass as a Canvas (Galeria Médium, 2017), New Glass Folder (Oravská galéria, 2019) and Image as a Topography of the Country (Galeria Miloša Aleksandar Bazovský, 2023). The specificity of the exhibition Through Layers is the focus of the authors primarily on the medium and technology, which becomes the stimulus for the theme. In other words - the fascination with artistic problems generates content or directly becomes it.

In the work of Martin Druska, we can see abstract painting, a play with shiny, variable and matte, sandblasted surfaces. However, he draws our attention primarily to the mass of glass, where grinding - the traditional technology of decorating glass - turns into a drawing intervention into the mass.

Vanesa Šamajová uses layering, the visible brushstroke, its structures and the different stages of drying of glass paint. Sometimes she touches her paintings with her finger, creating a gesture of touch and erasure. She repeats this gesture in plaster casts, in which, just like in paintings, she captures the fragile moment between dry and wet.

Klára Mária Švorcová benefits from the transparency of glass and the fact that a board always has two sides, and therefore two surfaces for processing. She also uses the graphic side of glass paint, which can be scratched into after drying (but before firing) and thus de facto draw. This creates a play with positive and negative, as well as light and shadow.

Sofia Tokošová is the only one of the group who primarily studies painting in a studio, so her approach to the medium is influenced by this experience. In her works, she seeks connections with other materials, especially paper and canvas. In structures that are based on nature and shadows, she seeks a position between the concrete and the abstract, often using very bright, almost “toxic” colors.

Lucia Kupcová bases her work on gradually collected sketches of the river. She tries to capture its flow, variability, and impermanence. “Individual drawings no longer function as separate records of a specific moment, but as part of a coherent whole. Partial opacity also emphasizes the tension between revelation and concealment.” In this case, the glass object is complemented by a drawing on paper, creating a dialogue between the media, the temporality of the drawing and the recording.

Our enthusiasm for this medium is fueled by the vision of the possibility of something new, inspiring, and unique. In a way, it is still terra incognita - painting on glass is as tempting and adventurous as expeditions to an unknown land.

Mgr.art. Žofia Dubová, ArtD.