The exhibition Later Layers builds upon Kristína Rambousek’s earlier works, in which she explored the water cycle, the properties of rocks and minerals through their microparticles and sediments, as well as the symbolism of plant communities and human corporeality. The harmony between original ecosystems and humankind — increasingly implicated in the process of their destruction — which has long formed the backdrop of the artist’s painterly approach, shifts in her new works toward a state of re-evaluation. She reflects on the layers that, over the years, become part of the soil as the foundation for further life, and which in recent periods shaped by anthropocentrism have become continuously more toxic. These may represent layers of worlds or realities that, in their physical form, gradually turn into smoldering fragments of waste and ruins generated by a consumption-oriented social system, while simultaneously shaping the memory and bodies of future organisms and beings. With references to post-humanist approaches, we become uncertain co-participants in observing archives of sediments of decay — collected products of animal or plant origin, or particles of colored pigments contained within the large-scale watercolors. Together, they formulate the environment of a new spacetime that calls for a reassessment of the distorted hierarchy and human-defined approaches toward more-than-human beings and landscapes, while acknowledging the necessity of interspecies cooperation and coexistence.

Viktória Pardovičová