he collection contains 18 photos from photographer and painter Barbara Balková, graduate from the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. The series of photographs features the same person featuring a neutral face with eyes focused forward and void of expression. Instead of a human expression, the face features vivid and unique masks. The masks are made from different things including biological materials such as flowers, food (ham, bread, sugar, egg), animals (hair, feathers) and non-biological materials such as watch cutters, candy glasses, banknotes, lace, etc. The non-biological materials create strange, almost monstrous appearances in the photographs. Balková is interested in masks as they belong to our everyday life, whether metaphorically or real. Masks are a form of a weapon used to defend and protect or are used for fun and attractiveness, acting, etc. Masks highlight emotions and demonstrate social roles. The mask hides and at the same time reveals human nature. Moreover, the masks Bálková uses are not ordinary ones, she composes them from pieces of meat, bread, flowers, feathers or dollar bills, hence obtaining attractive multimedia works.
Barbora Žůrková, in collaboration with her husband Radim Žůrek, has, through computer modification, lent her children fictitious appearances: in their features mix genes, their own and those of others. Thus are born fascinating generational comparisons, that the authors commented like that : “We have, through computer editing, attempted to search the image of the people we are, of what we have been and could be. “
