Oľga Paštéková is a Slovak artist born in Bratislava in 1984 and working between Bratislava and Vienna. Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, with a study period at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, she works primarily in painting while extending images into drawing and luminous objects. Her practice examines ecological and social relationships among people, animals, nature and civilisation.
Paštéková builds melancholic landscapes in which wolves, insects, water, vegetation and human traces hover between observation and symbol. Traditional work on canvas and paper is combined with layering, translucency and light. Mythological thinking and posthumanist ideas help her question the border between nature and culture, while recurring nocturnal scenes suggest systems whose balance is fragile or already disturbed. The result is sensuous and atmospheric, but never detached from environmental pressure and contemporary forms of coexistence.
Her 2026 programme brought several strands of this practice together. After an August residency at Residency Unlimited in New York, she presented Sleep Tight, Sunlight at Magna Gallery in Piešťany from 11 September to 31 October. The exhibition follows a related series of painted lamps, The Lights Are Not What They Seem, shown during Biela Noc in Bratislava and Košice. Here the firefly becomes a quiet guide through darkness, revealing fragments of animals, landscapes and organic forms at the edge of visibility.