Despite the fact that the work of Svätopluk Mikyta (1973) forks in various ways – medially, thematically, and also from the angle of artistic strategies – it is still very concentric and authorially strong. In the age of diluted authorship, it brings a systematically elaborated authorial programme, which puts private mythologies as well as the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk back into the game, and at the same time, it has a handmade character and a “nice output” and thus is understandable to a broader public.

Mikyta is a truly varied artist. He has graduated at the Department of free graphics at the AFAD, but he goes beyond the technique of graphics in his work: whether it is ceramics, porcelain, installation or drawings, he proves his technical sovereignty in all these fields. His work has various positions – free (video-performance Valaška na západ!), „nationalist“ (a never-ending cycle of Slovak-inspired drawings dedicated to the potato, the Tatras and other Slovak icons) as well as the cabinet-collector position (so-called pre-drawings). These comprise probably the most heterogenic cycle of Mikyta’s work. The art theorist Petra Hanáková characterizes them: „It is a continuously created and installationally reappraised set of collected prints, some sort of photo-graphics, facelifted by coloured drawing or a barely visible pencil retouch. The starting point is a found reproduced photograph with a specific iconographic and reproduction quality, into which the artist intervenes secondarily and changes it beyond recognition.“

Another position of the author is an intimate collection of diary notations with a self-portrait character, in which Mikyta captures himself, his „floating“ in the everyday reality. The intimate aspect of his work comes forward in a symbiosis with the reflection of “mass” themes, both dimensions are a part of a compact whole.

As the author himself states about his work: „I like to doubt something which is perceived as untouchable and changeless. To instigate people to look at things from a different angle and that way maybe unobtrusively “kick” some theme or a problem. Using different techniques and their mutual interconnection is only a pursuit to find a fitting form to a concrete content, which comes to my mind at that specific time. One medium would not be enough for me to communicate everything that I would like to and which I’m interested in. Sometimes it’s film, sometimes ceramics, sometimes drawings – everything is open”.