Kašpar / Salajka / Rybníček – V lese vesele (Happily in the Wood)
Nová galerie
April 16, 2015 – May 17, 2015
Curator: Martin Mainer
Opening: 16. 4. 2015, 19:00
Prague, 10. 4. 2015 – Nová galerie in Prague’s Vinohrady (Balbínova 26, Praha – Vinohrady) is preparing an exhibition of contemporary young generation visual artists whose main expressive media is painting. The group exhibition of Adam Kašpar, Jan Rybníček and Martin Salajka is entitled V LESE VESELE (HAPPILY IN THE WOOD) and is curated by Martin Mainer. It invites its viewers for a walk through a wood which tells a story through the three narrators.
Adam Kašpar is a 3rd-year student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in Martin Mainer’s Painting Studio IV. In his works, he takes us to a forest we know from paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries. The air in the forest is crystal clear and nature itself suffices to present the landscape’s monumentality and reveal the author’s interest in the study of landscape painting. “Adam Kašpar is an incredibly talented painter; despite being a student, his excellent painting skills attract the attention of both the professional audience and the general public... His three-meter canvas The Fir Tree which was shown at the ArtPrague exhibition compared favourably with the works of other presented authors such as František Matoušek, Jan, Knap, Jakub Špaňhel or Martin Mainer... Kašpar, Rybníček and Salajka are authors worth our attention,” claims Nina Hedwic, the founder of Nová galerie.
Martin Salajka is a graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Prof. Michael Rittstein’s Painting Studio III. Salajka, like a fisherman who pulls fish out of water, casts a line into the human subconscious mind, dream reality or his own imagination and lets the viewers of his works see his catch of a world in which not only nature and animals act out symbolical narratives about the life cycle and the human or the painter’s soul.
His teacher, Professor Michal Rittstein, says: “Salajka’s paintings have a high level of attractiveness... ...Sitting for long hours on the bank, eyes fixed on the water surface, waiting for a catfish or some other fish, he has enough time for his soul to dive deep and walk towards these creatures. And not only them. Together with the axolotls, other phantoms and residues of his restless soul emerge. Just like the river winds and turns and often disappears in the rocky depths, so does Salajka’s mind, detached from reality, wander in the more or less muddy depths where a light beam of the expressive sun only seldom flickers..”
Jan Rybníček commenced his studies at FAVU Brno in Martin Mainer’s studio and on attaining his bachelor degree he went on to study at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts in Prof. Markus Oehler’s studio.
Rybníček’s canvases from the exhibited series, which works with contrasts – mysticism, irony, cruelty, gullibility, strength and weakness – will also take us to a forest. However, in this forest, we will not encounter animals as we know them, but rather metaphorical beasts as the bearers of specific qualities or attributes.
Rybníček’s working style, his way of thinking and ironically-grotesque approach as presented in his paintings can be metaphorically supplemented and clarified by one of his original poems:
“Lecher Bag Snatcher
A little girl leads two little girls.
A big man leads three little girls.
A bad cop leads three little girls and a big man.
The big man leads all
All our steps.”
Martin Mainer, as the exhibition curator and the teacher of Kašpar and Rybníček, states in his text:
“The curator will also try to express his opinion on the artists’ works...first of all thank them for their own words about themselves, each of them characterised themselves and their work clearly...Their joint exhibition will surely be appealing for many reasons; all three of them are young, beautiful, talented...
...when looking at Kašpar’s paintings several things come to my mind...does observing a landscape release specific thoughts, (feelings, conditions, reflections), earthiness?...similarly to erotic pictures subconsciously releasing eroticism?...among other things, Kašpar’s paintings made me think of the possibility to realize what landscape painting is and why eminent landscape painters are born again and again...where the thoughts behind these seemingly “thoughtless” paintings are – in the attempt to record the Earth landscape through painterly means as it appears...and are the thoughts really absent? or are they not?...talent, diligence, self-realization, the strength of imagery and a longing for classical painting – that is Kašpar.
...Rybníček’s intellectual game is full of great English humour, raciness, and just like Kašpar and Salajka, he is aware of the detached view from the position of painting and furthermore, in Rybníček’s partly Aesopian, partly dark and funny etudes in the painted image there is something that cannot be exactly expressed or described by words or even metaphorically outlined...his work has been certainly influenced by his studies at the Munich Academy...the clear gesture, the aiming at shortcuts and an expressive, strongly internally experienced shapeliness and the colourist’s hues, howbeit dim...strong artwork, sensitivity and juvenility of an artist in his prime...
...Both Kašpar and Rybníček are still Fine Arts Academy students, yet both have participated in exhibitions and their works are starting to penetrate the arts scene...
...Salajka completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts several years ago and is well known to the local arts world and often presents his works...he naturally continues in his studies and retains his own specific style of creating a painting, he strives to search and find, change and add, try...a fast shortcut, tales of beings, a net in a story network, both expression and detail...almost shamanic themes...yet themes that are just as important for us, the people of Central Europe in the 21st century...a seeker of the sense of life and human conscience...symbolism, colour, everything connected by an expressive gesture, straightforward and fast origination...clear compositions thickened with a whirl of other smaller unsettling compositions...light and dark and lightness and “colouring” as such are also Salajka’s attributes...fire and water...struggle...strength and fragility...
...I am looking forward to the exhibition and the installation of its composition...
Martin Mainer ( Limuzy, April 3rd, 2016)“
