WORDS AMONG SHAPES / SHAPES AMONG NAMES / THE SELECTION FROM THE FAIT GALLERY COLLECTION

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

WORDS AMONG SHAPES / SHAPES AMONG NAMES / THE SELECTION FROM THE FAIT GALLERY COLLECTION

25.05.2013 - 12.09.2013

Fait Gallery
Božetěchova Street 1 (entrance from Metodějova Street), Brno
25/5 – 12/9/2013
Opening: 23/5/2013 at 7pm
Curators: Denisa Kujelová and Martin Nytra

The selection of works from the collection of Fait Gallery is this time focused on the artists of the middle generation. It is advisable to mention at the very beginning that the category of middle-aged artist is not perceived dogmatically based on age, but as a selection of established artists whose work is well known to the audience. Although some of them have not reached the canonical status of the most famous names yet, they all belong to well established artists at home and abroad, and often act as inspiration, the starting point and the object of definition for the youngest generation of artists whose work was introduced in the last selection.

It is possible to see the common features in their significant approach and the selection of topics that these eight authors continually work on. For all exhibited works there is typically a specific system of characters, may be even symbolism, which they gain in relation to the general concept and definition of art. This interpretation also contributes a narrative of used motifs and their constant presence throughout the discourse of art. This is generally related to problems of symbolism and meaning and the historical role of a painting and language as a space, where the unity of body and consciousness happens, and the identity of society is created.

This relationship is best expressed in the work of Eva Koťátková and Jan Šerých. Koťátková focuses primarily on the function of the tools in the organization of the individual in the structures of power relationships, while work of Šerých is characterized by hermetic closure of the language to the uninitiated audience. Marek Meduna´s paintings personify the ideal of a character due to the replacing of images and text and the creation of post-conceptual decor.

The works of Michal Pěchouček and Lenka Vítková use figurative painting and the role of draping and clothing as an external expressive character of the body, it´s physical absence they replace as the only actual remains of human existence. The question of personal integrity, interpersonal relationships, memory, responsibility towards others and towards oneself, and, therefore, the basic human values are dealt with by Milena Dopitová. Her Solarium is a kind of objective body shape, hygienically cleared of individual features, which (somewhere between the symbol of a bed and a coffin) establishes the contours and limits of our physical being.

In his exhibited paintings Petr Nikl explores the psychology of looking into the face and its symbolic function for displaying the subconscious connections. Subtleties of the perceived world are a kind of permanent record of an indefinable mystery that instinctively draws our attention. The phenomenon of human memory and perception in general, is explored by Pavla Sceránková. By the reflection of creating methods of visual experiences, she tries to reconstruct them subsequently and, therefore, she closes the range of topics, which has a core in continued validity and universal value in the introspective role of art.

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