TETRADEKAGON/ THE SELECTION FROM THE FAIT GALLERY COLLECTION FOCUSED ON THE YOUNGEST GENERATION

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

TETRADEKAGON/ THE SELECTION FROM THE FAIT GALLERY COLLECTION FOCUSED ON THE YOUNGEST GENERATION

07.02.2013 - 27.03.2013

Fait Gallery
Božetěchova Street 1 (entrance from Metodějova Street), Brno
7/2 – 27/3/2013
Opening: 7/2/2013 at 7pm
Curators: Denisa Kujelová and Martin Nytra

The already third » Selection « from the collection of Fait Gallery is this time dedicated entirely to the most recent work of the youngest generation of artists who have just entered in the art scene. The exhibition presents some key work of young artists as well as works indicating their future direction. Chronologically, it directly follows the previous two exhibitions which focused on the Czechoslovak modernism and the art of the second half of the 20th century.

This exhibition, among other things, tries to present the direction in which the contemporary art practice is going. Therefore, the selection of works is not limited thematically or by a medium.

There are classical media, painting, drawing and photography and media quite already common in art profession, such as video art, installations and light installations. The spectrum of approaches is also wide; it ranges from concentrated search of original language in the tradition of abstract painting, conceptual examination of options and nature of drawing, to more literary contents and sensitive exploration of shared intimacy, the relationship between culture, images and memories, to the works that deal with the actual functions of art and semantic shifts thorough time. Art may rely on traditional themes of landscape, figure and space and reformulate the neglected or reveal the paradox of contemporary perspectives of perception and understanding these symbols. The depth and diversity of the spectrum that the contemporary art scene has to offer are represented here, necessarily, fragmentally and incompletely, nevertheless, the selection represents sufficiently a specific range of views and procedures that are discussed and formulated in contemporary art. The unifying element is therefore the time the works were created, our present on which the authors are based and which they reflect, although each in quite peculiar way.

The exhibition presents individual works / collection of works by following artists:
Jan Brož, Katarína Hládeková,
Vendula Knopová, Martin Kocourek, Ondřej Kotrč, Petr Krátký,
Kamila Maliňáková, Pavla Naďová,
Martin Nytra, Johana Pošová,
Adéla Sobotková, Teri Varhol,
Michaela Vrbková & Diana Wink

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