The themes of transformation, growth, and maturity are explored in a new exhibition organized by the European Arts gallery and auction house in collaboration with the Art Part Club. A dialogue about the very essence of life unfolds among the paintings and sculptures of two prominent contemporary female artists.

“In order to grow, we must embrace change”

... —a theme that runs through the exhibition featuring works by Sára Konečná and Tereza Štětinová. The works of both artists—unpretentious yet extraordinarily powerful—are united by the central theme of change as a fundamental element of every form of life. The artists explore this inevitable journey—which we undergo from birth to death—not only from many perspectives but also through various means of expression. 

While we perceive some life changes as obvious and ritualistic, others occur more inadvertently and covertly. Exhibition curator Anna Pulkertová compares this process to natural cycles. Whether it involves growth linked to vulnerability and the loss of an imaginary protective shell, or the inexorable passage of time. The exhibition project Maturation highlights that changes, although people often resist them, are a necessary prerequisite for our maturation and development. 

Sára Konečná (*2002) is a painter in her third year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague; she works in the Painting I studio under the guidance of Robert Šalanda and Jan Kostohryz. She is one of the most distinctive artists of the emerging generation of Czech figurative painting. In her work, she combines personal experience with a sensitive perception of contemporary visual language and the possibilities of the medium of painting.

For the exhibition Maturation, Sára Konečná created a new series of paintings in which she shifts from her previous work toward a different conception of the human inner state. While in her earlier works she expressed psychological tension through bold colors, restlessness, and intense relationships between characters, in this new series she turns her attention to tranquility and the almost imperceptible transformation taking place within a person. 

Tereza Štětinová (*1987) lives and works in Prague. The artist originally studied photography at FAMU, where she developed a sensitivity to image, light, and composition. Gradually, however, she discovered the expressive possibilities of objects, sculpture, and spatial installations. 

In her sculptures, the artist does not capture the beginning or the end of a narrative. She freezes a single moment in the middle of a process, when the original state has not yet completely disappeared and the new one has not yet fully taken shape. It is precisely this liminal moment that connects human experience with the transformations of water, air, organic matter, and living organisms. Solid materials become vehicles of movement, and stone objects capture phenomena that are, by their very nature, temporary, impermanent, or difficult to grasp.

Curator: Anna Pulkertová