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The Afterimage series was created, in the words of its author, out of a desire to capture the story of elegance, which in today's world seems increasingly fragile and distant. The characters are depicted in magenta – a hue that does not exist in the spectrum of light and is only created by the merging of red and blue in our minds. Similarly, elegance is a kind of personal projection that we intuitively feel but cannot precisely define or touch.

The author of the paintings adds: "The figures are captured in gestures of grace, strength and beauty, yet they exist in artificial, decaying environments. They are surrounded by things, waste, excess – a world that seems to have lost its sense of depth. The contrast between their calm and the chaos around them reveals something disturbing: an elegance that was once timeless is now being questioned, distorted and perhaps lost altogether."

Ondřej Michálek (MIO) combines classical drawing art with contemporary symbolism in his work. The result are visually expressive compositions in which magenta-coloured figures inhabit surreal, constructed worlds. "These figures, captured in strong spatial perspective, function as avatars in a fragmented reality – where beauty coexists with waste and elegance becomes a synthetic manifestation," said the artist.

MIO works primarily with free drawing and acrylic on canvas. He builds each painting on an underdrawing, creating a balance between technical precision and emotional expression. His visual language draws on art history, digital culture and the aesthetics of consumerism to consider how our identities and perceptions are shaped in today's mediated world.