Twilight. Dusk. Darkness concealing the surrounding contours. Shrinking the space visible to the eye. An inner self struggling against an ever-increasing weight. Anxiety gripping the heart. The exposure of the most vulnerable parts of human existence. A heaviness instinctively pulling one toward the ground. The stability of the earth’s surface, covered in grass. Giving life to plants and trees. Sending energy to snowdrops that shine even in the dark. Offering, through its fragility, the hope that light will return. Light that illuminates the darkness. 

Laura Limbourg works with the motif of darkness in her art, a darkness that shrouds the human being in states of depression. The nudity in her paintings reveals the true essence of the human being—without masks, roles, or pretense—in their deepest vulnerability. For her, the surrounding nature is a conscious way to rediscover balance. And the motif of ubiquitous snowdrops sprouting from the grass or hidden in the palms of hands refers to the hope that spring, a fresh beginning, always follows winter.&

Laura Limbourg has been exploring themes that speak so much about today’s society—its mindset, the search for meaning, and a return to roots—since her studies at Oxford. We often find her own image in her paintings as well. Thus, she does not position herself as an artist merely in the role of an observer, but as a fully engaged human being. A self-portrait, eyes full of fear, hands covering her face, moths—both the real ones and those in dreams. Laura Limbourg lays bare (not only) her insecurities and deep fears. She paints directly onto unprimed canvases, spontaneously without preparatory sketches, often using diluted paints whose layering, blending, or soaking liberates the motifs on the canvas from their literal descriptiveness. Conversely, this lends them authenticity. The artificiality of today’s world fades away. What remains is the search, the loss, and the rediscovery of the self. 

Are we searching for twilight, an eclipse, or dawn?

Curator: Anna Pulkertová