Oskár Čepan

Education 2011 – 2015 PhD studies, studio +-XXI of Daniel Fischer, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, Slovakia 2007 – 2010 MA Painting, Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, Czech Republic 2004 – 2008 BA Printmaking, Faculty of Arts, Technical University Košice, Slovakia

Awards 2020 finalist, VUB Foundation Award for Painting for Young Artists, Slovakia 2016 finalist, NOVUM Foundation for New Art, Slovakia 2015 finalist, VUB Foundation Award for Painting for Young Artists, Slovakia 2013 laureate, Jerwood Drawing Prize, United Kingdom 2012 finalist, VUB Foundation Award for Painting for Young Artists, Slovakia 2011nominee, Essl Art Award CEE, Czech Republic 2011finalist, Art Critics’ Award for Young Painting, Czech Republic

Residencies 2018 Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo, Japan 2017 Regular Line Topoľčany – San Francisco, USA 2016 Pollex, Goteborg, Sweden 2015 Nástupište 1-12, Topoľčany, Slovakia 2013 – 2014 Red Gallery, London, UK 2014 The Drawing Lab, School of the Arts, University of Northampton, UK 2012 GuestRoom Maribor, Slovenia

Selected solo shows 2023 Millenial Misery, White & Weiss Contemporary, Trnava, Slovakia 2022 I’ll rain whenever I feel like it, J. Koniarek Gallery, Trnava, Slovakia 2021 Blooming Cherry, Indefinite Clouds, Šopa gallery, Košice, Slovakia 2019 Small Triggers, Altán Klamovka Galéria, Prague, Czech Republic 2019 Aishiteru, Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo, Japan 2018 Vitra Collectors Lounge, DSC gallery, Prague, Czech Republic 2017 Polokoro čávo, Diera do sveta, Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia 2016 The most beautiful couple competition, Berlinskej model, Prague, Czech Republic 2016 Vabank, Kunstverein Bratislava, Slovakia 2016 You you you you – Atelier XIII, Bratislava, Slovakia 2016 Niekto o mne vie všetko, East Slovak Gallery, Košice, Slovakia 2015 Bears, catastrophes and other everyday events, Nová galerie, Prague, Czech Republic (w. Katarina Janeckova Walshe) 2014 It Is One, Plusminusnula gallery, Žilina, Slovakia 2014 UFOs & River Flows, Zahorian & Co gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia 2014 Brilliant at Diagnosis, GPLspace4, Vienna, Austria 2014 It’s like an earthquake, Le Salon, Paris, France 2012 Kde je muj smisek?, Bunka gallery, Ústí n/Labem, Czech Republic 2011 Vinoslava Svarena, Gallery Enter, Bratislava, Slovakia 2011 Urban Legends, Meet Factory, Prague, Czech Republic (with randomroutine, Hungary) 2010 Hriešne obrázky s vysokou kvalitou, Kasárne Kulturpark, Košice, Slovakia 2008 Gallery By Night, Studio Gallery, Budapest, Hungary (with Judit Fischer, Hungary) 2008 217, etc.galerie, Prague, Czech Republic

Selected group shows 2023 Hypothetical Situations, The Others Art Fair, Torino, Italy 2023 Foreign Bodies, Galerie Pekelné sáně, Kroměříž, Czech Republic 2021 Printmaking – one medium, East Slovak Gallery, Košice, Slovakia 2020 Artikl, GASK, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic 2019 Skúter IV– triennial of young art, J. Koniarek Gallery, Trnava, Slovakia 2019 Anything Goes, White&Weiss Contemporay 2019 Anything Goes, White&Weiss Contemporary, Bratislava, Slovakia 2019 Hobulet, Berlinskej model, Prague, Czech Republic 2019 Lino III, Galerie Klatovy Klenová, Czech Republic 2018 Everyday Exotic, Société, Budapest, Hungary 2017 Regular Line, The Laundry, San Francisco, USA 2017 Ko-shické metro, Emil Filla Gallery, Ústí n/Labem, Czech Republic 2016 Telling Lines, Lappenraanta Art Museum, Finland 2016 Oyster!, ZOYA Museum

Statement

My artwork is based on reflecting identity in a common form of introspective view, which also includes mirroring the expanding online environment. Drawing has been a great platform in this process, because it allows a quick recording and sketch of an idea, but at the same time, with its fragility, it can persistently touch something that is at the core of our perception of the surrounding world.

My visual language used to aim at advertising strategies, the banality of entertainment shows, mass media images, investigated into the moods of the contemporary world, its naivety, cynicism, pretense, psychedelic visionary and kitsch simulacra, i.e. in the whole visual mishmash of social networks, blogs, microblogs , or virtual worlds on the Internet.

My recent drawing cycles have thus reopened the views of routine situations with regard to my own - embodied, i.e. gender-conditioned, experience. They reflected on the change in the perception of my own identity, which was partly caused by motherhood, but also by pedagogical experience and indirect contact with students during classes in the online space in recent years. In the drawings and engravings, there is also the need to articulate one's own insecurity and the feeling of failure in everyday situations, which cannot simply be ignored, nor can they be applied as something socially acceptable. At the same time, the feeling of responsibility for the experience of others is also a new impulse to reassess artistic strategies - as if through the pressure I discovered the meaning and power of "traditional", at first glance, retrograde processes in the field of printmaking, which are proof that the only thing that makes sense to push for is the authenticity of the statement.