The Skrewed One

70% of the hammer price is allocated to support the non-profit foundation Spolu s odvahou, a member of the Bátor Tábor Family.

Ester Parasková is one of the most distinctive talents in contemporary abstract painting, with works that combine wild, almost crude expressiveness and industrial grime with an intuitive visual commentary on the norms of the modern world. Parasková studied in the painting studio and the studio of free art at the Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague, and to this day she has devoted herself exclusively to painting and drawing. Her dynamic style bears the hallmarks of children’s painting or “surrealistic” automatic drawing, using a painterly shorthand, incorporating figurative fragments, and recycling and deconstructing pop-culture references. Parasková’s gestural spontaneity is similar to a method used by abstract expressionists in the past—she paints on unstretched canvas laid out on the ground, often using only her hands, and transfers the energy of the creative process directly onto the canvas. Her works do not aspire to be a critical commentary but rather a description or caricature that does not follow a clear, linear narrative. The Skrewed One is an energetic gestural painting, provocatively titled as a failure. The negation of the painting itself intensifies the rebellious spontaneity of the piece, charging it with a wild energy and underscoring the artist’s one-word characterization of her own work as “anti.”