Sep 11, 2025
Exhibition Archaeology of Self by the young artist Marko Piroški, on view at the Gallery on Štrafta (corner of Mihajlo Pupin Boulevard and Pionirska Street).
Archaeology of Self explores the complex relationship between the identity of one’s own past and nostalgia for bygone times through realistic still life painting. Focusing on the depiction of personal surroundings, particularly the rural household where I grew up, I find poetry in the captured state of chaotically accumulated, often forgotten objects through elevated perspective and a vivid color palette. These works are not only representations of space and things but also an introspective map—a means of understanding the self through the material traces of childhood objects.
Using acrylic paints on large formats, I seek the beauty of the moment, believing that classical-academic expression still holds the power to communicate with the audience and convey what is both personal and universal. In the balance between chaotic and harmonious, each scene is a fragment of intimacy, containing a nostalgic sense of the carefreeness of my childhood and the transience of time—and within it, a recognition of one’s own past.Marko Piroški was born in 1992 in Novi Sad, originally from Srbobran. He completed high school at the Bogdan Šuput School of Design in Novi Sad in 2011. He earned his undergraduate degree in Fine Arts (Department of Graphic Arts) at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad in 2021, in the class of Professor Zoran Todović. He completed his master’s studies in painting at the same academy in 2024. He has participated in several solo and group exhibitions. He is the recipient of the Milivoj Nikolajević Fund Award for Best Drawing-Study in 2018, as well as the Annual Award for the Most Successful Artistic Work in the Graphic Arts Discipline at his undergraduate diploma exhibition in 2021. Since 2024, he has been a member of the Association of Fine Artists of Vojvodina (SULUV) and works as an art teacher/professor in the municipality of Kikinda.