Jiří Sopko, Wave after Wave, Danubiana, 2024

Jiří Sopko is considered by the professional literature to be one of the most important representatives of Czech figurative art. His work is characterised by a very distinctive, completely unmistakable authorial handwriting, distinctive colour and inner poetics. An integral part of Sopko's artistic expression is his typical delicate humour. Sopko's works are unclassifiable, completely original, timeless.

Since the seventies Sopko has liked to group his paintings and motifs in threes. The first real triptychs, i.e. sets of paintings connected by a motif or composition, appeared more frequently from 1989 onwards and for a time completely dominated his painting work around 2000, when Sopko repeatedly depicts triplets of static figures, objects or geometric compositions, with the individual parts of the triptych playing out as colour mutations. Later 21st-century work continues to evolve in motif series and cyclical returns, but where the subject itself is not the key. The main role is played by colour, often reduced to the relationship of two tones. Like Wave after Wave, the motifs are repeated again and again, but with elements of playful difference in each occurrence.

One of the key themes Sopko has returned to regularly since the late 1980s, whether in his solitary works or polyptychs, are motifs associated with water, images of swimmers, bathing figures, waves or the open sea.

Gema Gallery and the Danubiana Maulensteen Art Museum present the most extensive collection of diptychs, triptychs and series from 1989-2022 to date. The exhibition is assembled mainly from the collections of Galerie Gema and supplemented by works from private and gallery collections.