artista tcheco Jiri Maska creates pieces that are both majestic and visceral. Maska works with mixed media to make highly textured tableaux of narrative images. The pieces are characterized by their heavy, graphic lines and saturated colors. Frequently an image will play two contrasting shades off each other to intense, otherworldy effect. Figures are stylized but not simplified, and backgrounds are a shifting patchwork of shadows. Most often, Maska's inspiration comes from some of the oldest and richest shared source material in the world: the epics of antiquity, such as the story of Gilgamesh or the many books of the Bible. His interests know no national or even chronological boundaries. In every piece the figures are always in motion, caught at the height of their dramatic arc. Maska does not shy away from the darker aspects of these stories, instead choosing to illuminate all facets and find the grace in every tale. Maska was born in Razice, Czechoslovakia and has since exhibited all over the world, including in France, China, Australia, Uruguay, Holland, Canada, and the United States.