In Marek Meduna’s exhibition an allegory of human nature, temptation, and power without responsibility unfolds.

The artist references the story of the Ring of Gyges as recounted by Cicero in the book On Duties. In it, a shepherd acquires a magical ring that imparts him with invisibility and, with it, the ability to act without worry of being discovered.

With this literary metaphor, Marek Meduna invites us to a place where political and historical images mix with medical artefacts that have transformed into objects bearing meanings related to beauty, terror, and transience. Through paintings and objects, he creates intermediary worlds, where the landscape, the body, power, and culture become transitional zones – troubled but strangely intimate.

Marek Meduna is a Czech artist whose work is based on a distinct drawing and graphic style. He often explores the body and identity through grotesque situations in which awkwardness, vulnerability, and liberating humour intertwine. The work of Marek Meduna is permeated with personal reflections and nostalgia, while systematically focusing on the value of emotions and their revolt when confronted with ideological, physical, and political structures. His trajectory, not just as a painter and a graphic artist, fluctuates between positions without inhibition and borders, where human personas and inanimate objects appear, through which the artist explores the world in absurd and impossible constellations. At the same time, he also explores formality, ceremonialism, and rigidity, and incorporates them into his reflections on values, language, and the zeitgeist. Marek Meduna studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He received a PhD from the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague, where he also worked as an assistant in the Painting studio. From 2000 to 2018 he was a member of the Rafani art collective. He is a member of the Skutek Association and heads the Painting 4 Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.

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Acknowledgement of cooperation: JAF HOLZ spol. s r.o., Ferona, a.s., BALSHOP