Jakub Záškodný depicts himself in his paintings. His self-images are not traditional portraits. The viewer does not gaze upon figures posed with dignity, meant to impress through facial beauty and rigorously refined technique. These are not canvases for palace halls. Visual perfection is not the essence here. The message lies in the depiction of inner conflict, a destabilized self, and the existential struggle of a person with themselves and with others. Ideal precision is disrupted by stylistic freedom; many brushstrokes are laid in sketchily, as if indifferent to descriptive accuracy, and formal details are often left unresolved.
Some of Záškodný’s paintings resemble photographic snapshots that catch us unprepared, surprised in our deepest privacy. Or like film stills, when playback is accidentally frozen. The body remains awkwardly twisted, gestures are unfinished, and legs step out strangely (False Prophet, Bare Essence). Other figures appear to be captured in a particular inner state, immersed in the world of their own mind. The painter seems to be stuck in a dead point—suspended in time, distant from present reality. The image is permeated with melancholy, yet the brushstrokes are lively and create tension between warmth and cold, between matter and spirit (Weight of Thought). Or in the painting Bare Essence, where a sharp yellow horizontal line separates the figure from its surroundings, as if isolating it in a space that is both concrete and dreamlike.
The paintings visualize Záškodný’s reflections on life. “I try to capture the tension between vulnerability and strength, between action and contemplation…,” says Záškodný. Almost Hamlet-like, he hesitates: “to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles…?” (Decay, Weight of Thought). To remain motionless and suffer under the weight of thoughts—or to overcome the darkness and step forward, even into the unknown? Such visions seem unattainable in the dark; they bring gloom and appear as Beneath the Reach.
The series from 2025–26 is a diary record. Záškodný illustrates the search for one’s own self. The German psychologist Franz Ruppert says: “When we are ‘broken,’ it is crucial to become aware of inner conflicts. Then the past ceases to control the present, and the self returns.” One only needs to cross the threshold (Threshold). A person steps forward again. The description of one struggle is complete.
Ivona Raimanová
2025