Michaela Šuranská & Kristína Mičová: Do You Think the Sun Is Yellow?

Presented here for the first time, this exhibition project showcases the work of two artists who are united by their long personal friendship and their shared interest in the mercurial nature of the landscape in both space and time. The multimedia installation encourages visitors to slow down and perceive the external world more closely. Presented as part of the Couples cycle of exhibitions.

The exhibition is conceived as a multilayered journey through the landscape which expands beyond physical movement and emerges instead as an exploration of subjective perception, memory and imagination. Walking and observing our surroundings is an act of (re)discovery which is neither logical nor linear and which opens up the possibility for minor miracles to appear in our everyday lives. The title of the exhibition poses a seemingly banal question which in fact provokes us to consider the limitations of how we perceive the world around us. What is the true nature of things? Do our physical bodies enable or obstruct our understanding the world? The artists explore how our experiences and observations of the landscape are transformed by our imaginative interpretation, probing the points at which fact and fiction intersect. This process also offers a restorative escape from an oversaturated world where meandering and withholding judgement can facilitate new meanings and encounters. Kristína Mičová presents her analogue photography as a visual diary which captures fragments of the landscape and meaningful moments, while Michaela Šuranská expresses her thoughts by expanding the potential of painting with collage and assemblage. A crucial momentum is provided by extracts from the artists’ email exchanges which reveal that even recent memories are formed and deformed subjectively as part of a collective imaginative phenomenon. An audio loop featuring recordings from nature, resonating with birdsong and the clatter of stones, fosters a distinctive atmosphere and evokes a sense of pilgrimage. The central feature of the exhibition is a site-specific installation of bottles, inspired by findings taken from among the roots of tree, which stand as a symbol of discovery and communication across space and time. Visitors are encouraged to interact with the exhibition and add their own messages to the bottles, thereby emerging as co-creators of the installation and expanding its imaginative scope.

Mgr. art. Katarína Balúnová, ArtD., exhibition curator

Author profiles
Michaela Šuranská (1993) completed her doctoral studies at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica in 2023. Her work is currently focused on expanding the medium of painting or exploring painting and its intersections in the context of the landscape as a temporal and cultural memory. She is the co-founder and curator of the Rozkvet Gallery in Banská Bystrica, the creator of the Kláštor Opening project in Štiavnické Bane and a producer at the Schemnitz Gallery in Banská Štiavnica. In 2023 she gained 2nd in the Painting of the Year Award organized by the VÚB Foundation. In 2022 she was a finalist in the Strabag Art Award and in 2016 she was awarded the Dean’s Prize for her diploma work. She has held solo exhibitions at the City Gallery in Rimavská Sobota, the Central Slovak Gallery in Banská Bystrica, the EQO space for interactive art in Spišský Hrhov and elsewhere. Her work has also featured in several group exhibitions in Slovakia, Poland and Romania.

Kristína Mičová (1994) completed her bachelor studies at the Open Studio of the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica under Rastislav Podoba in 2017 and her master studies at the Studio of Painting II of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava under Rastislav Podhorský and Martin Špirec. Her work ranges across different media, including drawing, photography and texts, videos and installations. The artist’s main theme is the experience of the landscape and the phenomenon of time. During her wanders across the landscape, she collects various rocks and objects that draw her interest through their shape of structure. She has been the subject of solo exhibitions in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Serbia. In 2022 she collaborated with the writer Ján Púček on the book Karpaty! which features her drawings and photographs.