The title of the exhibition Sehnsucht, referring to the longing for something that has not yet disappeared, but is inevitably disappearing, describes the artist's emotional experience while creating the works in this series.

The exhibition presents a cross-section of Patrik Kriššák's work from 2020 to the present, opening up a space for reading his painting as a process in which rationality and inscrutability collide. The artist works with analytical procedures, but at the same time he introduces chance into the painting, which he does not try to eliminate, but rather to cultivate. This tension reflects the inspiration of the idea of conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, according to which irrational impulses should be followed decisively and logically.

The work of Patrik Kriššák took shape at a time when the legitimacy of painting was intensely debated in the contemporary art world. His studies with Daniel Balabán at the Faculty of Arts in Ostrava led him to seek a position that would not deny painting, but expand it. Paradoxically, the artist responds to the "crisis of painting" through non-painterly practices that are close to graphic expression and bring an emphasis on the physical act into the process. His paintings are made in direct dependence on the body, its possibilities and limits.

A major transformation in his manuscript was brought about by the pandemic period, when the artist's attention turned to existential questions transcending individual experience. The environmental crisis in his work does not manifest itself as a moralizing appeal, but as a silent narrative that leaves interpretation to the viewer. Kriššák traces a process of gradual disappearance, a transformation that is subtle but irreversible. It is this theme that the artist concentrates in the motif of coral, which recurs almost obsessively in his work. Coral reefs function here as a universal sign of fragility and the slow decline of natural wealth. They become an image of an ecosystem whose condition reflects the overall condition of the planet.