Jozef Srna: Aby bolo viac svetla

Srna observed the world with extraordinary attention – capturing not only the atmosphere of everyday socialist life, but also people’s inner lives, their joy, melancholy, and tension. His paintings function as both personal and historical statements, offering a glimpse behind the official versions of history. Despite conforming to the stylistic doctrines of the time, his works exude a quiet resistance to the absurdities of the regime, making the paintings subversive from within.

The Soga auction house invites you to an exhibition of works by Jozef Srna, in which the author finds new expression in self-portraits and realistic studies of everyday life. The collection captures the last decade of the author’s life, which coincides with a key turning point in modern Slovak history – the fall of the totalitarian regime and the advent of democracy. The collection of works serves not only as a historical commentary, but also as a personal statement about aging, introspection, and awareness of one’s own mortality.

Srna’s self-portraits are timeless: even today, they reflect polarization, populism, a feeling of lack of freedom, and the emptying of words of meaning. They do not evoke nostalgia for the past, but offer an analytical, accurate, and still vivid view of society. His paintings preserve fragments of a world that is slowly disappearing and remind us of the importance of critical perception of the past and cultural memory.