Zahradní Ateliér / Garden Atelier
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TRANSPARENCY - WAYS OF LIGHT
Project of exhibition of Czech and Slovak artists
This project introduces 13 painters from the ex-Czechoslovakia (the now Czech Republic and Slovakia): Zdena Höhmová, Michaela Klimanová, Božena Rossí, Eva Trizuljaková, Miroslava Trizuljaková, Jan Jemelka, Karel Rossí, Tomáš Rossí, Pavel Šlegl, Petr Štěpán, Marek Trizuljak, Václav Vaculovič and Petr Zlamal. By a human and artistic view, they are a very compact group; however they live on various places, either in big towns like Prague, Brno and Bratislava, or in small cities and villages, especially in Moravia (the eastern part of the Czech Republic). Practically all of them dedicate themselves for a long time to professional free-lance artistic activities. With the exception of Eva Trizuljaková (born in 1926), all other authors are typical protagonists of the nowadays fifty-year aged Middle-European artistic generation. Historically and culturally logical is the fact that almost all of here nominated move themselves and develop their artistic activities on the background of Christian values and tradition. And, all of them regularly present their work on exhibitions in their home countries and abroad - practically in all European Countries and some of them overseas too.
The idea of the project TRANSPARENCY emerged few years ago, from a personal experience of contemplating an excellent collection of works of Vincent Van Gogh, at the Museum Kröller-Müller in Holland. Those paintings seemed to emanate some kind of magnificent light, among other reasons due to brilliant color harmonies and their exceptional emotive effect. The mentioned Museum is full of best pieces of European modern art, but - for me at least - Van Gogh covered completely all the rest and remained in my mind like one of the most important and unforgettable moments, like an experience of something splendid, peaceful, warming, however little bit disquieting too. Another artist from the identical époque, Paul Gauguin, also builds its painting on emotive color aspect; but its luminous energy is more attenuate and existentially deeper. An example from completely different times can give us the icons with their mysterious spiritual emanation, or the splendid color polyphonies of medieval European painting, whose intense luminosity is like a resonance of the infinitely dynamical heaven’s life (maybe this reality is more visible in the French, Italian and Czech gothic painting). Among artists of our time, a nearly ecstatic event in this sense was for me the meeting with the person and the painting of German sculptor and painter Otto Herbert Hajek (suddenly, died recently in the year 2005).
According to intentions of this project, now speaking especially about painting, it seems that the art work (as the finished, definitive image) is able to emanate some particular kind of light. From one part this is logically reasonable, for example by a theory of color. On the other hand, there is also a presence of indescribable, perhaps accessible only using the ways of sensibility and intuition. At this moment I’d like to re-evocate an ancient definition of the beauty like resplendence of Truth (Veritatis splendor).
The Italian philosopher Maurizio Malaguti in his poetical and visionary texts speaks about „ways of light“, which are not an abstract lifeless spectacle; they are a manifestation of living existence full of love: “The breath of God generates the many and at the same time unites them in new harmonies. The ways of light are not transparences of inert ether. Rather, they are countless faces, hidden in the excess of sunlight, that turn towards us in a patient paideia1/ of peace. In the vault of heaven, the stars only trace empty images. Far higher still, in their unique ordering in powerful figures, luminous presences announce the dreams sent by God and reach us in bold enterprises of love.” 1/ the antic Greek word paideia means an eternal divine pedagogy which in fullness of love helps to increase all living beings. (From: Maurizio Malaguti - “Between memory and project: Towards new humanity” Catalogue of international exhibition The City like a place for human being”, 2004)
The transparency, the clarity and lucidity, the capacity to make penetrate an inner space by the light and to transmit this light to others, can become a quality of human person as well. This is not only a poetic metaphor; also in our time we can find exceptional personalities that illustrate it without any doubts (John Paul II., Roger Schütz, Mother Teresa from Calcutta, Chiara Lubich, the new pope Benedict XVI., or Dalai Lama).
In the work of my friends and colleagues, among whom I tried to find authors for this project, it’s possible to notice that “something” that we could classify as transparency - the luminous fascination and brightness of inner light which is either soft and delicate or profound and strong. This fact is not based on contrasting graduation between black and white, like in the chiaroscuro style of Italian late renaissance, or in the “metaphysical” painting. Above all, those painters indicate an open-minded, free creative work with the light and color.
ARTISTS
Zdena Höhmová lives and works mostly in Brno and alternatively in Prague too. She elaborates the topic of light using multifaceted processes and methods: it is either a stratification of various transparent and opaque layers, or a sophisticated graduation of color and luminous qualities. In the 90s Zdena Höhmová created a numerous cycle entitled „Transparencies of old walls“, in which the wall became a metaphor of the (impenetrable and co temporally semi-transparent) edge between two contrasting worlds of „here“ and „there“. In the work of Zdena Höhmová the light remains constantly as a primary theme.
Michaela Klimanová from Bratislava (Slovakia) is a multimedia artist that develops drawing, textile and paper creation, installations and performance. Michaela regularly introduces her textile art creations abroad (for example in Seoul, New York or Los Angeles). The recent works, dripped and cut paper assemblages are inner prayers and invocations of light, inspired by the dramatic situation of the world, especially afterwards the tremendous terrorist attacks (like the destruction of the building of WTC, and others).
Božena Rossí, as same as her husband Karel Rossí, belongs to significant Czech personalities who dedicate themselves exclusively to painting. The light in the work of Božena Rossí is fully interior; it never illuminates the subjects from outside; it penetrates through multiple shapes and stratifications that evocate a sensation of nearly physiological inner tissue in which it’s also possible to recognize a spiritual “mind-landscape”. In this perception, very important is also the emotive color aspect of all paintings. Božena Rossí lives and works in a small one Moravian town named Bystřice nad Pernštejnem.
Eva Trizuljaková (born 1926) is an outstandingly mature painter and writer. She lives in Bratislava and in a certain sense belongs to interprets and “prophets” of our times. Eva Trizuljaková wrote numerous articles and books on the nowadays thought and cultural situation. Among other aspects, she is also a mother of two artists here mentioned: Marek Trizuljak and Michaela Klimanová. In her artistic work Eva Trizuljaková developed, especially during the last three decades, the theme of light. The sensation of luminosity is built on base of expressive brilliant color harmonies. But, above all, this light comes from monumental biblical visions (the Apocalypse, Psalms and Prophets). Eva Trizuljaková elaborated numerous serials of pastels on paper entitled “Valley of Vision”, “New Heaven and New Earth” and “Order of Light”. (From the recent literary production to be mentioned are the books: “The justice: on place of hope?” and “The sixth vision”).
The light of Miroslava Trizuljaková is white: She works mostly with structural handmade paper, on which space distributes sensitive transparent brushstrokes, color layers and applications of other material fragments, traces and imprints. The results of this creative process are images of the structure of light. Miroslava Trizuljaková with her painter‘s work and with the personal aspect of inner clearness, represents one of eminent expressions of luminosity and transparence. Together with her husband, Marek Trizuljak, Miroslava lives in a small village Senička, nearby Olomouc.
The painter Jan Jemelka lives and works in Olomouc (the ancient historical and cultural metropolis of Moravia). The author created, for example, admirable stained-glass windows in several churches in Italy, Slovenia and Czech Republic. In his multiply printed wood-cut graphic works Jan Jemelka arranges a gradual stratification of several transparent color layers, until he reaches a particularly emotional and luminous effect of color harmonies which evocate a feeling of heaven’s landscapes.
Karel Rossí, the husband of Božena Rossí, is concentrated to meditative work of penetration into magic visions of late medieval and renaissance North-European painting on wood. The visible connotations of concrete authors (like Hieronymus Bosh, Pieter Brueghel, or Lucas Cranach) are classical citations and reinterpretations: Their mystic symbolism is transposed to the bizarre reality of our days. The light in the painting of Karel Rossí is contrasting and mysterious, it relocates the spectators inside a profound, infinite space.
Tomáš Rossí (twin-brother of Karel Rossí) lives in a small village named Janovičky, in the zone of „Czech-Moravian Highlands“. Color impact and luminous brilliance of the painting of Tomáš Rossí is eruptive, almost burning, and it evocates a similar feeling like old icon painting, or spiritual “mandala” compositions known from oriental religions. A numerous serial of works on paper, aquarelles and gouaches, created during the last years, is very emotional in its dynamic brush work as same as a marvelous color-luminous vividness.
Pavel Šlegl is an expressively dramatic painter, sculptor, graphic and writer of poetry. His rustically dense oil paintings on large wooden panels, and similarly the emotionally burning, black and white drawings are full of contrasting “baroque” luminosity, which incorporates profound spiritual contents. Pavel Šlegl lives and works in Prague, and he realized several monumental sculptural-architectonic objects in the Zoo Park of Prague as well. Together with Petr Štěpán, Pavel Šlegl created important mosaics in several churches and in architectonical areas in the Czech Republic and abroad (for example in Italy).
Petr Štěpán lives in a small one historical town Český Brod, nearby Prague. He is a many-sided personality - the painter, graphic, musician and essayist. Petr Štěpán works mostly with overlaying thin transparent paper sheets: he “inscribes” in them light but decidedly formed shapes and drawing or painting traces, which emerge, afterwards, from the imaginative spatial depth which is full of white light. From 90s, Petr Štěpán united his wide musical and painting dimensions into the cycle of “painted scores”, which musical interpretation accomplished very well, in several occasions, Zdena and Václav Vaculovič.
Marek Trizuljak (the husband of Miroslava Trizuljaková) is also a wide-ranging artist which penetrates into various fields, the painting, glass sculpture, poetry, essayistic and organization of international exhibitions and cultural projects. He created several complete realizations in architecture, interiors of churches, sculptures, mosaics and colored stained or fused glass windows (in Italy, Canada, Slovakia and the Czech Republic). Marek Trizuljak develops the topic of light either in his glass sculptures or in the paintings whose subject is mostly the spiritual immersion into a color and luminous space.
Václav Vaculovič is a many-sided personality; he is an excellent painter, graphic, poet and musician. Since the beginning of 80s, Václav Vaculovič organizes, together with his wife Zdena, significant every-year international artistic meetings (The Festival Forfest of Kroměříž which follows spiritual streams in the contemporary music and fine arts). Václav Vaculovič is also an erudite thinker, able to express clearly his considerations. His excellent figural drawings, as same as the monotypes and large-sized paintings, develop permanently the theme of light. This light transforms itself into insightful warmth; in other cases it is a nearly musical, monumental orchestration of color and luminous palpitation which exposes the most substantial things of human’s life.
Petr Zlamal belongs to the figure of important Czech figurative-expressionist painters. His work is dramatic and explosive, often vibrating or reflecting anxious, disquieting faces of life. Zlamal’s “phenomenon of luminosity” is profoundly related to dense color harmonies and his apparently abstract painting is always full of figurative reminiscences and essential human narratives. Petr Zlamal is also noticeably active in organization of cultural life; from 1992 he became organizer of numerous International Painting and Installation Symposiums at the former Augustinian monastery in his town, Šternberk, nearby Olomouc.
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SECOND PART:
THOUGHT BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT „TRANSPARENCY“
The light, in its physical substance, seems to be explored enough; however we have to match two different scientific explanations: the light like an electromagnetic oscillation and like a flow of absolutely small material elements. We can measure the velocity of light; and the human genius was able to definite a clear mathematic formula of the relativity of the “light-time-space”. We distinguish very well that the light can be life-giving or lethal. Painters and photographers know in abundance about “living” or “death” light. In the painting the light, more exactly its refraction that gives specific color qualities to various pigments, is the primary constituent.
The cultural tradition of humankind is full of intuitions and references about light like a spiritual magnitude. The twosome of light and darkness emerges in various civilizations. Antique Greeks built up a dualistic imagery of eternal antagonism between light and darkness. This predisposed also the Christian thought. Moreover, in the Christianity the light acquires the dimension of living being: Jesus Christ is the Light of the world. The early Christian Roman martyr St. Laurent (died in 258) says: “My night doesn’t know obscurity, but everything is a resplendence of Light”.
Many centuries later, the illuminists offered a completely different conception: The illuminated human intellect which triumphs over all the ignorance and backwardness (including the “obscurity” of belief in God). This proposal rapidly inverted into a nearly mythological idea of the “Light of new times” from which took advantage all kinds of “world-revolution”. In autumn of 2005, in a circumstance of celebrations of the 200-years anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz (the victory of Napoleon against Austrian - Russian coalition), I heard somewhere an explanation that “in this battle the Light triumphed over the obscurity, and a new raising Sun appeared on world’s horizon”. However, if the “light” was the wind of political and social changes in Europe and the “darkness” would be the old European monarchies and their ideals, the real nature of this “brightness” reveal victims (more than 35.000) which bones are to find until now on fields around Austerlitz. Perhaps, those facts could move us to recognize the presence of “another”, deadly and freezing light in the human history, that shouldn’t be ignored or overlooked. In consequence of it, when we follow the inspiration streams in the arts, it could help us to understand a dramatic, more contrasting and extrapolated dimension of light; it could help us to search for unconventional visions.
After that, from the spirituality of great world religions emerges a profound, ground-breaking intuition. Among basic symbols of Buddhism we find a snuffled candle. This represents the absolutely ascetical way, when all human inclinations, wishes and ambitions (not excluding the most sublime spiritual desires) must be “cut”. Only in this way the individual can be completely liberated and able to reach the illumination. This conception builds surprising bridges between oriental religions and Christianity - not only in effect of the pure fact of the extreme ascetic. Many Christian spiritual authors and mystics speak about the “dark night”, the night of faith, the night of sense, the night of spirit, going to the extent of the “night of God”. But, this is not a final position of spiritual efforts; it’s rather a breaking point which opens the gateway towards light.
When we project this vision on the horizon of nowadays culture, we can recognize many dark angles (wars, holocausts, the terrorism, the crisis of fundamental values, the powerlessness and inability when we are trying to protect ourselves against big natural and humanitarian catastrophes, when we attempt to get over their consequences, or, if trying to guarantee a peaceful living together of various contrasting geographical, political, religious and social world. Louise Lewis, in her project of the exhibition of Californian artists in the Czech Republic (“Mind Trips”, at the “Forfest” of Kroměříž, 2003) identifies the symptoms of continuing crisis: “In the last decades of the twentieth century, the zeitgeist of the 60s and 70s was replaced by a new rush to materialism, accompanied by the growth of media and corporate monopolies. Environmental abuse, repression, greed, and warfare continued unabated.” Actually news (September 2006) says that unnamed one ship from Netherlands discharged a huge quantity of dangerous toxic materials on Western African coast, in Abidjan. In consequence of it 6 persons died, and more than 20 000 others suffered serious health problems. In the world very probably emerges a new one type of hidden, apparently sweet, but brutal totalitarianism. More than one century before, Nietzsche announced the “Death of God”. Analogically some authors speak today about the “Death of Culture”. The Spanish philosopher Maria Zambrano commented our time in this mode: “We are living in one of the most tenebrous nights of entire human history” (from: M. Zambrano, “Person and Democracy”, Italian edition, Milano 2000).
Nevertheless, in the middle of this night appear new ways of light. The most considerable positions of a Christian mystic (St. John of the Cross, Theresa from Avilla or, nowadays, Chiara Lubich, as same as the pope John Paul II. in its encyclical “The Incoming Third Millennium”) announce that the obscurity is a gateway which brings us towards Light. The night par excellence is the Christ’s agony on the cross. This mystery is incapable by a mere human intelligence: “My God, my God, why did you forsake me?” That “snuffled candle” shows the way, the abyssal passion is converted into the Resurrection. Strong in this sense are the reports of writers from the age group who survived, at their childhood, the fascistic concentration camps (for example the author Elie Wiesel). Coming from the same generation, a famous Czech writer Ivan Klíma says that the measure of happiness in his life was the experience of pain.
This logic opens a completely new vision of the contemporary art and its principles of discovering the beauty in unaesthetic, inappropriate things. On the other hand, in this perspective the false-shining glitters, vague estheticism or forced “esoterically-luminous” painting can reveal their superficiality. The cheap, rose-lacked cheeriness hides, under its pelt, tremendous tragedies (see, for example, the film “American Beauty”). Some art critics try to verify that an assemblage made from lightening slices of Coca-Cola tin reach the identical value of spiritual emanation like (for example) the ancient icons. But there is to advise that not each joke of luminous effects and not every recall of light in the contemporary art means can automatically touch the infinity. I’d like to express my personal conviction, that the true communication with the living Light is possible; either on level of individual life, or in the human society - so that in arts too.
Marek Trizuljak
In Olomouc, Czech Republic, September 2006
