KATEŘINA VINCOUROVÁ / THE PRESENCE AS A TRILL

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.

KATEŘINA VINCOUROVÁ / THE PRESENCE AS A TRILL

01.06.2012 - 07.09.2012

Fait Gallery MEM

Božetěchova Street 1 (entrance from Metodějova Street), Brno

1/6 – 7/9/2012

Opening: 31/ 05/ 2012 at 7 pm

Curator: Didier Montagné

What can be expected from a confrontation with a new work of an artist who fell silent for such a long time? Is it her intention to strip us naked using her effortless uniqueness bordering on oddity? Perhaps she aspires to show what have changed during the entire time and what is constant, despite everything, that is the personal property of the author herself, her ethics influenced by the philosopher Pierre Audi and his way of “understanding life”?

Be it as it may, in the face of the new work by Kateřina Vincourová we can clearly observe an obvious shift from the subject of internal tension and chaotic strain showing the unpredictability of human physicality and sense of an elusive physical desire, which also characterizes her earlier work, to the pure unfolding into space reduced into composition of lines which also kind of fade out in it and at the same time, they determine it. In other words, while the earlier work of this author dealt with what is trapped somewhere inside of us and longs to come to light, now the work describes, in kind of elegant and fragile way, what has come out slowly and freely to the surface. Kateřina Vincourová gave shape to transience which is characteristic for every material thing, for life of every existence.

New works of the author, moreover, show her unique expression, her style and apparent knowledge of the material used (different types of fabric, notions, lingerie, threads, etc.).At the first glance, it’s impossible to overlook the feminine element in her work. The author gives new meaning to the material, function and value by showing different ways to use it. She degrades its usual utility value and in a very poetic way she accents its inner physical characteristics (expansivity of silk fabric, strange color of nude human body, the power of a coat hanger which connects the low with the high, the vertical with the horizontal, etc.). Her choice in combination with brand new and original materials which are integrated effortlessly into her concepts without showing all the possibilities of their further use, is precisely what gives the work of Kateřina Vincourová the unique purity and poetics. Between what has changed and what remains, this new bitter study of space in contrast to metaphorical cheerfulness of materials used there can be recognized discreet but insistent link which unites her work – presence as a trill.

Didier Montagné

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