Veronika Pausova’s Milk Path (2024) and Mother System (2024) are evocative reflections on motherhood and the entangled experiences of time, memory, and transformation. Painted during the final weeks of her pregnancy, these works explore the physical and emotional dimensions of nurturing life while integrating personal references to the artist’s past. Each piece combines hyper-realistic imagery, abstract graphic elements, and imprints from a garment from her early 20s, creating compositions that are as intimate as they are enigmatic.

In Milk Path, layers of imagery suggest multiple moments coexisting: the fabric imprint conjures memories of early adulthood, a hanger evokes an article of clothing or a dressed figure, while the naked breasts and a hanger wire transforming into a stream of breast milk capture the flux of identity—woman, daughter, and mother intersecting. The work speaks to the interplay between personal history and the profound transformation of creating new life, merging the everyday with the surreal.

Mother System offers a similarly layered narrative. Red lines crisscross the canvas, evoking the veins that sustain life within a body but also resembling the structured constriction of a corset or the confinement of a cage. The lines’ graphic quality contrasts with the hyper-realistic depiction of breasts, from which milk seems to flow, highlighting the dualities of nourishment and containment, connection and independence. The fabric imprint once again ties the piece to the artist’s personal history, layering themes of memory and care with the realities of impending motherhood.

Across both works, Pausova weaves together her precise painterly skill and surrealist tendencies, inviting viewers to consider how time, identity, and relationships unfold in layers. The imprints of fabric, once part of her younger self, serve as a poignant bridge between past and present, underscoring the profound continuity and change inherent in motherhood. With their intricate interplay of figuration and abstraction, Milk Path and Mother System invite us to reflect on the connections between body, memory, and the fluid boundaries of selfhood.