Ola Nenko
Under a Metallic Sky
Exhibition opening: 12. 6. 2026 / 19.00 hod. Exhibition's duration: 13. 6. - 22. 7. 2026 Exhibition's curator: Petra Housková
Production: Denisa Juhászová, Martin Panulín
Ola Nenko works with metal as a language: raw, irreversible, precise. Every burned line is a trace of movement — personal and collective, chosen and forced. Her installations explore the space between stability and its absence — in material, in the body, in the dissolving certainties of the present.
The starting point of the exhibition is a metal tent too heavy to move. In summer it overheats in the sun; in rain, water seeps inside through openings burned into its surface. It can serve neither as a permanent dwelling nor as a nomadic shelter. Ola Nenko chose this paradox deliberately. Burned drawings of a moon, stars, and celestial creatures on its shell let light through and project it onto the surrounding walls. Under a metallic sky, we cannot see the whole. We must step outside — out of the tent, out of the situation — to understand what we lived through inside it.
Ola Nenko (*1996) is a visual artist born in Kraków. She graduated from the Department of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and in 2018–2019 studied at the Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto in Portugal. Her artistic practice encompasses sculpture, object-making, and scenographic installations, exploring questions of living space, stability, and home. Her recent projects are inspired by a reflection on her own nomadic way of life, leading her to critically examine personal family history and transgress imposed patterns. Nenko’s works present home not only as a physical space but as a concept full of tensions and contradictions — particularly in the context of contemporary challenges related to migration, belonging, and identity. She is a laureate of the 10th edition of the Grey House Foundation prize, received an honourable mention at the 10th Triennale of Young Artists at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, and is the recipient of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Award for the best diploma work at the Academy of Fine Arts in 2023.
The project is supported by the City of Košice.
