Glazed stoneware
2024

Czech-born Eva Yurková now lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Trained in traditional printmaking, her aesthetic ideas always stem from an imaginary printing press. Working in layers, in fields of color and shapes, the bodies often at the center of her works are a matrix made of oil, wood, paper, linoleum or clay, or a mix of these materials. With Touché, Yurková works with sharp materials and heavy metals such as steel. Inspired by the hellenistic sculpture “Boy with Thorn”, the artist reflects on the sense of discomfort that can be found beyond beauty, like a moment of itch, where there is an urge to stop and pull the thorn out of the heel, or in this case out of various parts of the female body, perhaps her own. Ordinary pain comes to stand next to the ideal beauty of God and Goddesses. The sharp stars are purposefully glazed within the body of the figure to enhance this sense of discomfort, however a corporeal or spiritual feeling known to many.