Martina Drozd Smutná (*1989) is a graduate of the doctoral program in the studio of Intermedia II. At the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where she previously graduated from the Painting Studio II. She was the finalist of the critics' prize for young painting (2014), EXIT Awards (2015) and also the Laureate of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award (2022). She participated in residential programs in Matadero Madrid, the Yzolyatsia Cultural Center in Kiev or the Czech Center in Bucharest. He exhibits regularly and group regularly on the Czech scene and abroad, eg in the Mladé Gallery in Brno (2020), Gallery in Ostrava (2020), Prague National Gallery (2019 and 2022), NOD Gallery in Prague (2018) or Mattar of Art (2024). Kunsthale Trafo in Štětín (2021) at the Baltic Triennial in Lithuania (2021) or in the EXILE Gallery in Vienna (2021).
Martina Drozd Smutná is a painter with an unmistakable manuscript. Her paintings from both historical and contemporary perspectives reconsider questions of gender, social inequalities and related power structures. Human bodies in predominantly figurative paintings are often fragmented, reinforced and reinforced. The themes of family and relationships in general prevail, the author often plays with a swap of stereotypical gender roles - for example, she depicts a worried and exhausted father in stylization, whose "heroine" is usually a woman. Many paintings are devoted to strong female characters, often despite their difficult situation - whether she is a working woman, mother or bride. The thrush also reviews social hierarchy in its paintings. There is the theme of elites, superiority and subordination, with a slight exaggeration set in the paintings of the aristocrats, red carpet, or capture the maids. The latest paintings are thematized by personal and society -wide fear of the future in times of global political, economic and environmental crisis. The work of the sadly breaks old order, is interwoven with a razor criticism and sometimes melancholy or sadness, but on the other hand it emphasizes the importance of relationships and belonging, mutual care and resistance.
