Michaela Šuranská has long been painting on themes related to landscape and archaeology. Her interest is directed towards the issue of the changing form of public space, the memory of the terrain, simulating archaeological sites, the remains of human activity and their symbolic mapping. Her works have long represented the themes of the perception of landscape as a space subject to modification by historical events and the passage of time in relation to human activity.

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The title of the exhibition Cenotaph refers to a specific type of vertical monument that has been used since the times of ancient Greece and Rome. It is a memorial that is a symbolic grave without the actual body of the buried deceased; the vertically shaped cairn has the attributes of a tombstone despite the absence of the body. That is to say, in the dimension of an art installation, it may refer to a certain principle of simulation of its purpose. Its meaning lies not in the literal reality, but in the detonation of its meaning.

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In her paintings and installations, which can be placed in the context of the expanded field of painting, Šuranská often explores the flat horizontal terrain, its layers and articulations by means of a geometric grid. As an object characterized by its vertical form, the cenotaph opens up another dimension of the analysis of the territory. However, the erect monument as a territorial symbol has appeared in various forms in the artist's work in the past. Cult or religious objects and phallic symbols have appeared in her work in the past rather in various forms of vertical wood, for example as a depicted subject in a painting, or a found readymade object, such as architectural beams, tree trunks, wooden stakes, surveyor's stakes, etc. The archetypal cenotaph thus became a shift towards its further variation and a way of searching for new possibilities.

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Lucia Jarotta

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The project was supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council.

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