Lukáš Cinkanič (*1996) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where he studied in the studios of David Böhm, Dalibor Smutný, and Josef Bolf. During his studies, he also completed an internship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

In his current work, he explores the intertwining of identities, using his own family history as a starting point. At the center of his interest is the relationship between himself and his grandfather, a Himalayan mountaineer, whose life experiences and archival materials become part of the artist’s series of paintings.

While his grandfather’s journeys took him to high-altitude landscapes, Cinkanič finds his own way of discovering the world through adventurous expeditions across Europe. It is precisely the encounter between these two distinct experiences—which are, however, linked by the theme of overcoming obstacles and distances—that forms the central theme of the exhibition.

In his paintings, the artist interweaves personal memories, family photographs, and archival materials into new visual scenarios in which the past meets the present. The geometric forms that recur in his works are not merely formal compositional elements; they also disrupt the linear perception of time and space, thus becoming portals through which different realities intersect.

Cinkanič’s work is characterized by a sensitive interweaving of the medium of painting with his own graphic technique based on the transfer of images via screen printing. This process allows him to work with photographic templates and archival records. 

The exhibition’s title refers to a poem by Charles Hamilton Sorley, which resonates with the artist’s perception of adventurous expeditions, where intense experience meets an awareness of one’s own insignificance in relation to the landscape and the world.

"The waters of all the seas are restless as in a storm. 

On the trees, the branches are torn by a wicked gale.

Will the storm’s shadow pass? Why the trees, of all things?

We run without reason beneath the vast sky.”