The first solo exhibition of Prague-based artist Monika Žáková at Double Q presents her two most recent series of paintings, Echoes of Time and Echoes of Memories. As the title suggests, Žáková's work in these two series (as well as in her previous practice) focuses on the traces, imprints, passages or stamps left by time and the presence of force on the material itself. However, to speak of them as poetic ephemeral gestures would be too naive – in the author's case we encounter a precise and thoughtful work in which there is a cautious equilibrium between the uniqueness of the material and the use of its self-referentiality and the application of various degrees of control with which she approaches the medium. Despite the fact that the two series bear many common denominators, as one might expect in the practice of a single artist, what separates them are the two distinct temporal grants through which the artist grasps them. This is because the one in Echoes of Time is strongly organic, changing, unstable and irregular, at times even physical, which can be understood as traces of flux and entropy. Whereas in Echoes of Memories we observe structural and mentally precise proportions of the pictorial plan corresponding to the way the brain stores and reconstructs memories and eventually constructs memory.

Gallery address: 68 Lok Ku Road, Sheung Wan