Boris Sirka – The Art of Darkness

“Dark things are closer to my heart than the light ones,” says the Slovak artist Boris Sirka. Not limiting himself with the form, rather he focuses on the content channeling his inner demons through videos, photos, collages, paintings and drawings. Inspired by the aesthetic of various alternative subcultures including heavy metal, fetish and horror movies, his art obviously favours the oblique.

In his photomontages, he juxtaposes eerie latex objects with the untainted milieu of churches and nuptials. By evidently being out of place here, these objects quietly undermine the original context. His paintings are scattered with various “low brow trivia” – high heels, red and black crosses all enveloped by antithetic dichotomies – innocence and offence; salvation and damnation. A hint of subversion is intrinsic to Sirka’s oeuvre.

Sirka graduated in 2006 with a Masters degree from the Faculty of Arts in Košice, the 2013 European Capital of Culture, where he still lives and works. In an anticipation of the European title, this Slovak city is currently in the midst of an artistic boom with cultural centres like Kasárne Kulturpark or Tabačka Kulturfabrik slowly transforming it into an East European Berlin.

Sirka currently has a solo show of his paintings entitled Hurry The Dead Travel Fast at the latter venue. On the opening night, he premiered his audiovisual project BIOS in which he plays his favourite (looped, cut and sliced) black metal records. Whether painting, drawing, DJ’ing or subverting religious ceremonies, Sirka is a creative tour-de-force to be reckoned with.