Eva Maceková (*1984) graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM) with degrees in textile design, illustration, and graphic design. These specific foundations are also reflected in the material and haptic approach to painting that the artist has gradually developed for herself. At the same time, she worked in various media, with different materials and expressive techniques, the characteristics of which she now incorporates into a recognizable pictorial style. A distinctive feature here is her sense of the draftiness of form. Drawing is the element that connects existing objectivity with the imaginary world of figuration. It is also the paint applied in pastes to the surface of the canvas—sometimes texturally modeled, elsewhere with a distinct incised line within the paint layer. Also important are the expressive contrasts between the expressive color pastes and the delicate glazed sections.

The interest in biomorphic, organic forms appears to be an indirect reaction to the crisis and alienation of humanity in its ethical, statutory, and systemic roles. This phenomenon recurs cyclically in the history of fine art precisely during periods when faith in humanity is shaken, and when art intuitively reestablishes—and thereby renews—its sensitivity and respect for the diverse forms of life and its manifestations. In the case of Eva Maceková, this coincides with her own distinct sensitivity and the intensity of her individual experience, which, in the face of a hypothetical human collapse, give rise to a kind of new, imaginative mythology in which hybrid beings—plants (Eco driver, 2025)—play a dominant role. These auxins (embodied plant hormones), as the artist herself calls them, carry an inherent contradiction. Although they are meant to represent a sense of harmony, tranquility, and a safe environment evoking the myth of innocence and paradise, they often appear terrifying. Beneath the mask of humanity, they evoke unease and fear of the unknown (Gem, 2026).

It is precisely through this ambivalence—which challenges our conventional notions of harmony and beauty—that the artist tests our ability to perceive things differently. Free from ingrained cultural baggage, with solidarity, care, respect, and understanding toward the other. For when we accept these beings as harmonious or appearing harmonious, everything is inversely reversed, and humans see themselves in a different light. They are thrust out of their established, affirmed form and comfortable role. Human traits that we perceive as “normal” and socially “acceptable” may suddenly seem harmful, coercive, and toxic (Masks, 2026). In this context, it is certainly worth mentioning the book by the leading German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normality, which provides a clear summary of this topic.

The author offers an alternative framework of calm and contemplation to counter the current human fragmentation caused by the mechanization of digital schizophrenia and all-consuming speed. Her images are based on a magical fusion of figures and plants, in which she observes mutual formal and organic analogies in the internal structure of the anatomical and nutritional systems (Network, 2025). The structure of the human nervous system resembles that of a plant’s root system, which is why it is referred to as such in medicine. The root is the place from which an organism develops and grows, anchoring it in its continued existence, whether it be the mobile human organism or the static model of plants or trees. These morphological analogies underpin the fusion of plant and human bodies, including faces, in which the nose serves as a kind of sensitive root sensor (Portraits, 2025).

From the author’s perspective, social networks do not create anything radically new; they merely apply a model of interconnected networks to controlled communication, to which the user gradually adapts—both temporally and spatially—and becomes subject to a digital split between “here” and “anywhere else.” In her work, the artist re-polarizes the status quo with gentle irony. Against the encroaching state of digital media, which alienates and depletes fundamental human perceptual resources—including, among other things, the ability to concentrate and focus—she sets forth silent emissaries of the natural world (the Smart Foam series, 2025). These emissaries gradually transform the toxins of poisoned time into a phenomenon that is once again meaningful and fulfilling, much as plants serve humanity by converting various gaseous concentrations and substances into essential, life-giving oxygen. This liberating transformation is a kind of complex photosynthesis in which nature triumphs by restoring the status of life with all its necessary conditions, and in which humanity loses out due to its needs, ego, mimicry, recklessness, and greed. This situation holds true in Eva Maceková’s work, but not consistently in society’s everyday practice.

Green Screen is a warning signal through which the artist addresses present and future generations of people who are wasting time by burning not only their own but also the collective life energy of all. The selfishness of consumerism (just like any other ideology) is driving humanity toward collapse. The fact that we can alter our own environment within the realm of digital photography does not mean we can toy with the real living conditions of human beings. Those are not nearly as variable.