YIA ART FAIR

• YIA ART FAIR #09  - (20. - 23. 4. 2017, Brussels) - Martin Mainer a Samuel Paučo
• Prezentace se koná pod záštitou Velvyslanectví ČR v Bruselu.
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Nová Galerie is pleased to announce that it will represent Martin Mainer and Samuel Paučo at the international art fair YIA ART FAIR #09 in Brussels on April 20th-23rd, 2017. We are thankful to the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Brussels for their patronage.

Martin Mainer

Martin Mainer is a professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in Painting Studio IV and his work and educational activities place him among the most important personalities of contemporary Czech Art.
The roots of Mainer’s work can be found in the 1980s when he presented a series of unofficial exhibitions entitled Konfrontace organised by students of the Academy of Fine Arts. Gradually, a new wave of the 80s generation emerged and played an important part in forming the art scene after the decline of the communist regime following the Velvet revolution. Inspiration for the artist’s early work can be found in the Czech Baroque tradition and its expressive painting. Mainer’s work abroad also had substantial effect on his artwork. After having won the Prize of Jindřich Chalupecký, Mainer participated in an internship in California where he met philosopher Richard Alpert alias Ram Dass. Philosophical problems, religious themes and the search for answers to spiritual questions about his inner worlds have interlaced the artist’s works up to this day. Besides traditional painting the artist works with secondary usage of photographs, calendars and other objects to which he adds new layers of fantastic expressive themes in sharp contrast with the banality of the original pictures. Martin Mainer’s paintings are existential in their essence. They are also means for sharing spiritual tension, artistic expression of religious and philosophical subjects as well as offering a glimpse of the soul of one of the fundamental personalities in contemporary painting.

Samuel Paučo

Samuel Paučo graduated from Martin Mainer’s Painting Studio at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno where he soon started working as an assistant and now carries on in this position at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
Paučo combines a range of seemingly contradictory factors in his works. In his paintings he uses methods generally associated with abstract and expressionist painting: large monolithic areas, imprints and structures or sweeping expressive brush strokes with a thick layer of paint. However, the final results are landscapes, specific objects, portraits or combinations of all of these. The expressive style, contrasting colour schemes and the absence of light and shade modelling infuse his artwork with strong life pulsating with energy. Yet, beyond the energy infused layer of painting there is another, more thoughtful one which shows that the artist works both spontaneously and conceptually. The dynamic compositions in his paintings are always based on exploring shapes, area ratios, tonal values and lines which all lead to a unified, (dis)harmonic whole.