Author(s): Petra Cepková / Language(s): English
Issue: 1/2022
The portfolio of the Slovak visual artist Petra Cepková presents a selection of her artwork, which has been realised since the early 2000s in the fields of photography, installation and painting. The presented selection of the author’s works, from her university studies to her current pedagogical activity, is aimed at illuminating the author’s way of thinking about various visual possibilities of the medium of photography, as well as its different genres. Mainly, however, it is supposed to be a reflection on topics that gradually crystallize into intertwined parallel lines of emotions and thoughts that always de facto regard human relationships. Within the key topics in the concepts of her work, we could include terms such as transience, time, family, loneliness, love, violence, etc. Photography thus allows her to see and grasp the world in a different way, anew, more whole, and to see herself and others without masks of pretence, which might bring with it sadness but also a deep human understanding for others. In the context of this main idea that extends across her whole work, behind the various topics and photographic or visual art genres, we are able to read and observe metamorphoses of her entering our secret worlds, places where we would usually rather be alone, where we heal our painful spots. In the critical situation of the state of Western culture, her themes become topical and photography here is presented as a source of empathic thinking. The author in her work brings a different and new outlook on male and female aspects of partnerships, their social impact, building mainly on the significance of a functioning family. What, however, remains essential is her attempt to explain how very important it is to amend years-ingrained stereotypes. The author has a gift to sensitively grasp a fine fabric of underlying threads in places where our common perception scratches the delusive shell of the surface. She very clearly convinces us of a thoughtful and sensible study of the relationship between an author and the portrayed individuals, leading us to a sensitive perception of the even subtlest quiver of human souls. From the view of European photography, her work can be a great contribution, as it confirms that a perfect theoretical preparation is the basis of success in every art work.
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