Jaromír Novotný / As seen in their natural environment

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.

Jaromír Novotný / As seen in their natural environment

23.10.2024 - 20.12.2024

Fait Gallery MEM, Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno

Curators: Denisa Bytelová and Sráč Sam

Opening: 23rd October, 7 pm

Rest and movement are relative states. They have their own meaning, incomprehensible and invisible to the viewer, and so we attempt all the more to relate to a mystical interpretation of Jaromír’s work. The initial moment is alluring and entices us to follow it, to develop our reflections on spiritual urgency, but let us pause and pay attention to his uncommon organization, which aims to neither teach us nor force a sense of order upon us. Jaromír inflicts irreparable damage on his paintings. He recognizes his domain and, with a thorough knowledge of the material, decides on its future. This time, he remains intrinsically bound to both aforementioned factors. Rest and movement.

From this perspective, all that is physical is free. Nevertheless, the question raised by the sight of the attached, sewn-on, and sometimes scarred parts of the painting, a question we must inevitably address, is this: As we gaze at the fixed, needle-pierced canvas, how long can we keep from thinking of injuries and how much attention does our automatic mind pay to the idea of abandoning well-trodden paths? For our mind flows; it does not wait for permission but draws on personal experience.

JaromírNovotný merely records this fact without letting himself be unsettled by it. Any slight irritation is allowed to thoroughly dissolve in waiting. He proceeds according to his acquired awareness. Everything plays out with precision, through concentrated work – not, however, as an effort with an expected outcome, but rather by adopting his own physical and spiritual trajectories. He permits himself to exist in a limited, self-determining space. In this way, he becomes inseparable from thinking about contemporary art. His belonging is not established by acceptance. Perhaps things are irreversible and fluid, but for a certain amount of time we can still use specific actions to halt the dependence of temporal forms. In the case of Novotný’s paintings, our dependence on the physical material – from which we turn away even as we cling to it – tries to guide us past ourselves toward precise thinking. To guide us toward a slow reading inclined to performance. Epic dramas must be allowed to fall silent so that our cyclical thinking can achieve the same amazement from a painting.

How little yellow is still acceptable? When is a blue thread understood as an object, and at what distance do we begin to feel unsure whether we are looking through gessoed transparent polyester at a painting’s innards? On the one hand we have the processes of entropic change, and against this inevitability we can experience the painting’s subject, processed and managed in such a way as to show us only ourselves. By its rigid visual representation, it steers us toward the perception of movement as time, toward a number of personified changes resulting from interactions with our immediate surroundings. In a painting, everything that until a certain moment showed no signs of significance moves toward the greatest possible emphasis. The outward power of the ordinary is removed and incorporated into the painting. The sequence of changes shows us where the past lies. We want to and are drawn to Jaromír’s paintings precisely because of the unexpected contradiction of things, a contradiction that brings with it the possibility of revisiting our initial reflections on time and routine. It invites us to reevaluate our biases. Through conscious deliberation and waiting, it performs much visible work.

It is generally assumed that exhibitions allow for a greater control of reflections, but the very decision to engage in such considerations is more a profligate waste of thoughts than frugal moderation. Nothing is simple this time, for we will have to abandon the habit of anticipated events.

Sráč Sam

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