Petr Kvíčala / Research into the Ornament Continues
26.03.2025 - 26.07.2025
Fait Gallery, Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno
Curator: Ondřej Chrobák
Opening: 26th March, 7 pm
The exhibition sums up the last fifteen years of work of the Brno painter Petr Kvíčala. The artist returns to the post-industrial environment of the gallery where he presented a retrospective of the first two decades of his work in 2008. In the imaginary total of both exhibitions, we arrive at an impressive time span of more than thirty-five years, during which the mentioned "research" into the field of ornament has been taking place. At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, Petr Kvíčala made a name for himself with an original synthesis of the language of geometry and postmodernism. This is how he approached the defence of ornament as both an issue of mathematical order and an aesthetic phenomenon of a fading reputation. Ornament was rehabilitated, and the red wavy line became Kvíčala's signature form.
Ornaments, along with the wavy line, most often in the shape of a crenellation or a zig-zag line, continue to permeate Kvíčala's paintings like a mycelium, sometimes hidden, sometimes explicit. This polarity is perhaps more distinct in the period covered by the current exhibition than in the previous stages of his work. On the one hand, there are paintings constructed by a fine ornamental network, as if "embroidered", from which geometrical bodies of delicate colours pop out; on the other, robust, almost rustic ornaments resulting from gestic strokes of a broad brush. In recent years, the dichotomy between subdued monochromy and festival colours has found a background in the artist's life, asymmetrically divided between the city and rural seclusion. The rediscovered closeness to nature brings back into Kvíčala's current situation reminiscences and updates of his artistic discoveries made more than three decades ago. Once again, woodworking comes into play, parallel to painting. Large wooden objects should be understood primarily as extensions of Kvíčala's painting into the third dimension, offering the viewer, among other things, an immersive experience of entering the "inside" of the painting.
Kvíčala continues to work in open cycles in which he explores, tests and exploits his artistic discoveries. The exhibition, tailor-made for the unique space of the Fait Gallery, is an opportunity for the audience and the artist himself to examine the results of this work. Petr Kvíčala has invited the artist Karíma Al-Mukhtarová to his exhibition as a special "guest". Intuitively, he feels a loose affinity with her work which he associates with a sensitivity close to the art of Eva Kmentová. If Kvíčala's construction principle of his paintings was named "manual geometry" in the early days, for Karíma Al-Mukhtarová, the manual approach is analogically vital - primarily the demanding work of embroidery, where the needle and cotton penetrate impenetrable materials such as glass or wooden beams. The hidden geometry principle, represented by the implied orthogonal structure that is inevitably present even in intimate handiwork such as obsessive embroidery, perhaps unsurprisingly meets the fundamental principle of Kvíčala's work, which is an interest in the order of nature and its disruption.
Ondřej Chrobák
Petr Kvíčala has created several artworks in the public space in Brno:
- a monumental painting on the glass frontage of the Passage Hotel (2019), Lidická Street 23,
- the frontage with figurative drawings on the new church of the Blessed Virgin Mary Restituta (2019), Nezvalova Street 13,
- the Zig Zag 3,2 sculpture (2014) next to the building of the Moravian Gallery in Brno, Husova Street 18,
- painting in the Festive Hall, a terrazzo floor and painting on the vaults in the Reduta Theatre (2005), Zelný trh 313.
FRANTIŠEK SKÁLA / TWO YEARS' VACATION
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Fait Gallery, Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno
Opening: 26. 2. 2020 at 7pm
Curator: Miroslav Ambroz
In my past lives, I was a hunter and a gatherer. I would always start my everyday routine
with decorating tools, weapons and creating musical instruments for myself.
1) Even though you were considered as the creator of spatial objects, in this exhibition your major emphasis is on paintings. What was the impulse?
The new atelier, where for the first time in my life, is light, space and warmth, this helped me to finally start painting. An eternity of horizons was open in front of me, together with two big travels to Columbia and Australia, I understand this happy season as staying on an abandoned island, therefore the name "Two years’ vacation".
2) In 2004 you painted large format canvases "Roads of swifts" and "Mother Earth". In the sametime frame you also painted "Chaple of Karlin", and even before that, "Envelopes" were created, therefore in your own way you are continuing with something that was created long before?
Of course, I was already painting in the '70s during my studies. Back then I inherited very rare pigments from prof. Slánský, which I am using presently. The first time I used them was during my exhibition in Rudolfinum, when there was a need to paint something great for "Silent Hall" and a figure of the central deity arose, which is appearing in my works in different varieties. Connection with the material was always important for me. The type of work on the ground on the non-gesso canvas, together with water diluted pigments and acrylate bonds demanded this physical contact. Even in some places on the paintings, there are my footprints.
A wall painting "Chaple of Karlin" was in somewhat a cleansing exhibition after the floods in 2002, and according to an agreement I had to turn it white. The oldest envelopes date back to 1986. The style of their decoration is connected with the style of "Third rococo" and that epoch is accumulated in my works. In the '90s I created multiple large format envelopes, which I perceived as the object/pictures having multiple-meanings and it opened an inexhaustible line packed into certain cushions, similar to guitars. This is related to my favourite non-standard formats (ovals) and adjusting large canvasses "free" without the stretcher bar.
3) What was most interesting thing about Australia?
First of all never ending space and starry skies. Five weeks, every evening by the fire in the desert. Furthermore, colours and rock paintings as old as 60 000 years. This was the first time I have seen baobabs and eucalypti that were 800 years old, which existed way before the arrival of whites... breathtaking scenery. I brought back a lot of collected materials and natural clay, with which I am painting. Australians have a "story" for each god, they are mostly cautionary stories, which have helped to keep the tribes viable. It appears to me as there are various imaginary divinities, however, they were born from the transcultural backdrop. Something interesting is that the rock paintings and figures on it are very similar all around the world, but I am not the type who would study these things in much detail. On the other hand, I deliberately keep certain blindness, to be astonished, and I would recommend this to consumers. Those who ask too much will learn too much.
4) Some rusty images look a bit apocalyptic, did it have any specific impulse?
"Rusty images" are painted by some rusty mud from a forested swamp in West Czech. In fact, they are ferric nano-shells of microorganisms. I discovered this beautiful colour in the '70s, which came back to me now, to extract it artistically. Thematically, they partly follow the cycle of thermo-drawings "Landscapes from Timelessness" or the cycle of graphics "Giants", where the power of nature is personified into supernatural beings. People desire to witness a miracle or other paranormal acts, and we have this advantage that we can also paint them. Also, people are drawn to the aesthetic of natural disasters and the theatre of extinction. Towards the end however, the road took me elsewhere.
5) When you were in Columbia, did you try yagé -the most renowned shamanic hallucinogen?
I don’t need to check what I suspect. I don't need to meet God. I don't want to upset him. He
could stop passing me.
The interview led Miroslav Ambroz
