“Kárhozat (Damnation)”
Ester Gašparova and Matei R. Mai

“Kárhozat (Damnation)” presents new works by Matei R. Mai and Ester Gašparová. Painting and sculpture converge around images that have acquired authority through repetition, circulation, and institutional use. Faces, political emblems, and systems of display appear here in states of fragmentation, displacement, and material transformation.

Matei R. Mai works with degraded digital imagery, archival photographs, and medical records. Compression artifacts, visual noise, and discontinuities enter the paintings through layering, airbrush, scraping, sealing, and other analogue procedures. The image carries the marks of its own circulation.

Ester Gašparová approaches historical symbols of power through ceramic, metal, and modular sculptural structures. Eagles, architectural barriers, and political portraits lose their original hierarchy through inversion, folding, repetition, and spatial reconfiguration. Material fragility stands in direct tension with the monumental character of these motifs.