Pavel Dušek
Following on from the previous exhibition of female painters TA malba, Trafo Gallery continues with a show of the youngest Czech painting by recent male graduates. The six men represent their compulsive need to paint, their determination, dedication and courage to be a painter in the present, and their shared belief in the meaning of their work. The curator of the exhibition is Jan Kudrna.
Today, when someone borrows the title of a cult western, mental automatisms generate, among other things, the word courage. The most important link in the work of these six painters is the courage to paint. Art entered the endless digital arena some time ago. Into a space that defines its (un)certainty by the absence of its own borders. The artist is not and will not be a typical gladiator (although it may appear that way in some cases). Although from time to time he stands in an exposed place with different energy, exposed to an audience with different expectations. However, he still has the possibility of a physical exit without fatal punishment and irreversible consequences.
It is not about what formally unites the given six painters, what is essential is a shared belief in the meaning of their work. The common, compulsive need not only to paint, but above all to be a painter. Their courage to paint completely devoid of thematic tendencies and committed currents, their determination and dedication to their own path. If we were to summarize what is really the fundamental common denominator of this group of painters, it is certainly these qualities: necessary, not only creative, humility and unprecedented determination, which in a human way was summed up by one of our six authors in a long-ago conversation: "I will paint, even if I didn't have it. Just ketchup and mustard.”
The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual publication summarizing curator Jan Kudrna's view of the selected authors and their own quotations formulating the author's approach to painting.
