The Light That Fell on Sady

In The Light That Fell on Sady, 2025, Pope Bacay is interested less in depicting a realistic scene than in capturing the feelings and memories associated with a place. The artist abstracts the city of Prague into amorphous shapes and varied textures that suggest a flowing river in the foreground and the Old Town along its banks in the background. Thick impasto, grid patterns, drips, and bold outlines imbue the abstract landscape with a rhythmic quality, as if the city was expanding slowly towards the edges of the large canvas.  The broad swathe of architectural details in this painting suggests that it is a view seen from a distance, such as from atop a hill or an outlook. The scale of the painting recreates the sense of awe that might be experienced when gazing at this beautiful view but it also echoes the emotional significance of the city for the artist.  Associated with joyful memories of being reunited with a loved one, the work captures how a place might forever be etched in one’s memory.