{"id":29125,"date":"2026-04-14T07:56:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T05:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zgjm.sk\/?page_id=29125"},"modified":"2026-04-14T08:03:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T06:03:36","slug":"jakub-milcak-on-this-side-of-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.zgjm.sk\/en\/exhibitions\/archive-of-exhibitions\/2026-2\/jakub-milcak-on-this-side-of-the-sky\/","title":{"rendered":"Jakub Mil\u010d\u00e1k: On This Side of the Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Jakub Mil\u010d\u00e1k: On This Side of the Sky<\/h1>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Artist, exhibition title<\/strong>: <\/strong>Jakub Mil\u010d\u00e1k: On This Side of the Sky<\/em><\/strong>
<\/strong>Venue<\/strong>: <\/strong>Z\u00e1horie Gallery of J\u00e1n Mudroch in Senica, Sadov\u00e1 619\/3
Curator: <\/strong>\u013dudov\u00edt Holo\u0161ka<\/strong>
<\/strong>Opening<\/strong>: <\/strong>April 10, 2026 (Friday) at 6:00 PM <\/strong>
<\/strong>Musical guest at the opening<\/strong>: <\/strong>Milan Pa\u013ea \u2013 violin, Katar\u00edna Pa\u013eov\u00e1 \u2013 piano<\/strong>
<\/strong>Duration of the exhibition<\/strong>: <\/strong>April 10 (Friday) \u2013 May 24 (Sunday), 2026<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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About the exhibition<\/h4>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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For the spring months of 2026, the Z\u00e1horie Gallery, in close collaboration with Prof. \u013dudov\u00edt Holo\u0161ka, has prepared an exhibition of Jakub Mil\u010d\u00e1k, a painter and graphic artist who completed a large part of his studies abroad. The poetic title of the exhibition corresponds to the character of his work, a cross-section of which is presented in the gallery.<\/p>

\u201cThe Relaxed Gravity of the Present\u201d<\/p>

Jakub\u2019s large-scale compositions present universes of organic, vegetal, and biological shapes and forms. They are expressed in a varied gestural idiom within a dramatic color scale, often softened by chiaroscuro tonal techniques. They evoke baroque, turbulent events of form and color found on the vaults of churches and the ceilings of palaces.<\/p>

He continues to develop the theme through the use of different techniques (e.g., oil) and by articulating forms on a monochrome yet color-active field. In this way, the image gains a diversity of shapes that distinguish and expand the effects of its striking color palette. Pure, enclosed abstract forms with distinct, saturated colors multiply the semantic richness of individual compositions. The dynamic abundance of colors and forms carries a wide range of connotative meanings.<\/p>

\u201c…the content of every painting is interiority, an invisible life in itself, which cannot cease to be and which permanently endures in its own darkness.\u201d\u00b9<\/p>

The structures of the cosmos transition into structures of vegetation\u2014leaves in the crowns of trees, deciduous and coniferous alike, grasses, flowers, weeds, herbs, reeds, terrains. Within this newly formed world of motifs, a human figure suddenly appears. As a hidden part of the natural world, it becomes a fairy-tale, mythical being, sometimes hybridized with the animal world of birds or insects.<\/p>

This becomes most clearly defined in the painting Trilogy. The work is inspired by the prose of the same name by Jon Fosse\u2014\u201ca ballad-like story of the musician Asle and his companion Alida, two young lovers, a story of great themes: of love that demands fatal sacrifices, of fate that is both grace and curse and from which there is no escape, of death that takes our loved ones with definitive relentlessness\u2026\u201d\u00b2<\/p>

In the painting, against the background of a dark sea and a gloomy sky through which starlight pierces the clouds, a pair walks forward. The linear construction of the composition contains a hidden tension. It diagonally bursts from the lower right edge of the format toward the upper left corner. Around these diagonal lines, contour lines of the figures\u2014their faces, clothing, and the objects they carry\u2014coil and stretch. The internal dynamism of the arabesques recalls the swirling compositions of the abstract paintings with which the artist began.<\/p>

(excerpt from a text by \u013d. Holo\u0161ka)<\/p>

[1]<\/strong> Michel, Henry: Seeing the Invisible: On Kandinsky. Minor, 2023.
[2]<\/strong> Mil\u010d\u00e1k, Peter \u2013 Ormand\u00edk, Marek: How to Read an Image. Modr\u00fd Peter, 2017.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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O autorovi<\/h4>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Jakub Mil\u010d\u00e1k<\/strong> (*June 1, 1989, Levo\u010da) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava in the studio of Doc. Vojtech Kolen\u010d\u00edk, at NSCAD University in Halifax, Canada (under Dan O’Neill), and completed his Master\u2019s degree in painting at Columbia University in New York (under Gregory Amenoff). His work is a dialogue between tradition and modern abstraction, where the boundaries between reality and dream continuously intertwine. His art is often perceived as a visual attempt to capture \u201cthe mystery and miracle of our existence.\u201d Every detail on canvas or paper represents a movement toward deeper understanding that transcends ordinary reality. Mil\u010d\u00e1k refers to his drawings as \u201cpainterly drawings,\u201d as they are not merely preparatory studies but autonomous, physically demanding processes of layering. He works with biomorphic, psychedelic forms that fill the surface of the paper using luminous lines characteristic of the search for \u201cthat which light does not shape.\u201d The drawings also resemble microscopic views of cells, flows of energy, or dense vegetation seemingly growing directly from the paper. After completing his painting studies in New York, Jakub Mil\u010d\u00e1k returned to Slovakia in 2020 and simultaneously returned to the tradition of painterly craft. He moves away from the abstract world toward the concrete. This marks a transition from his typical biomorphic abstraction to a more narrative and contemplative depiction of figure and landscape\u2014an attempt to portray the unknowable and a longing for a momentary infinity.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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