Patrik Proško

Shapes of Time I is based on a found oil painting dating approximately from the second half of the 18th century. Its age and gradual deterioration have created a dense network of cracks across the surface, which becomes the basis for a new visual layer. The craquelure formed through the passage of time is highlighted with white lines and transformed into an autonomous drawing. The intervention remains entirely within the boundaries of the original canvas and follows the structure created by the material of the painting itself. Two visual layers thus overlap within the work: the original motif of the Madonna and Child and a new organic landscape derived from the painting’s physical ageing. What would normally be perceived as damage becomes a source of new imagery. The work treats time as a co-author. The original painting provides the motif and material, ageing inscribes its own structure into it, and the subsequent intervention makes this hidden record visible. The new image therefore emerges not by covering the old one, but by developing a process that was already taking place within it.