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This exceptional work from a set of about a dozen paintings, mostly half-portraits, came about through chance. One day the artist noticed several bags of jute in a store and decided to use it as a painting support. Just as Jiří Sopek's sculpture work led him in 1978 to a new interpretation of plasticity and space in his drawings, he now discovered entirely new opportunities for the expression of color given the special characteristics of dark jute. He did not prime the jute, allowing its organic, irregular and coarse structure, including its dark warm tint, to become a new means of expression. The very tone of jute forced the artist to progress from dark to light while painting. The subjects of the paintings in this set closely approach the scenes typical of the genre, depicting symbolic, reserved pictures of everyday life – which for Jiří Sopek means the absurdity of life. Published in the artist's large monograph JIŘÍ SOPKO, Pavla Pečinková, Gema Art, 2007.