Load-Bearing Wall - František Drtikol Gallery Příbram by Sofie Švejdová 12.3.2025 - 8.5.2025Curator: Magda Danel

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The metaphor of the load-bearing wall as an image of stability, a basic structure or a solid framework supporting life, ethics and existence. The painter Sofie Švejdová (1990) reaches the next stage of her work with her exhibition Load-bearing Wall in Příbram. The Christ-like years bring about a transformation in content; the form, despite its development, remains consistent. Sofie reaches for seemingly banal inspirations that immediately surround her in everyday life. But the questions she poses through her intense painting are fundamental. In Sofie Švejdová's work we can look for essential ethical moments; an encounter with her work is not just a visual experience, but a profound reminder of responsibility towards others and society.

The exhibition Load-Bearing Wall opens the door to an intimate confession, giving a glimpse into the safety of home and the corners of autonomous existence, where the individual comes to his own edge and seeks a stable point in the shaken foundations. The load-bearing wall gradually becomes an open, variable element and a starting point for imagination; in destruction it loses its function and remains present as a symbol or an empty form.

Painter Sofie Švejdová is one of the most outstanding talents of the generation of thirty-something Czech artists, transcending the traditional boundaries of painting and creating a visual experience by layering colours in dynamic large-scale compositions and subtle statements on paper.