Josef Bolf, Marcel Hüppauff /D/, Jiří Petrbok, Vladimír Skrepl
21.6.2010 - 10.10.2010
This exhibition of four painters, with a distinctively expressive character, presents the current work of three Prague artists of the younger and middle generation, complemented by the young German painter, Marcel Hüppauff. The uniting feature of these artists, besides the distinctive, often fierce painter's handwriting, is submersion into their subconscious, dreams, emotions. But in particular, they record, just like very sensitive seismographs, concerns about man and his being at a general level. Each of these artists represents a different position of such psychological probe but at the same time they have many common ways out and a stylistic alliance. By placing the emphasis on subjective experiences and often even dark visions of humanity, they represent the opposite of the conceptual exhibition which is under preparation and will be held at the Wannieck Gallery next year.
Josef Bolf continuously returns, in his sad and worrying pictures, to his unhappy childhood. The scenery is of burnt housing estates, injured people or furry toys, blood. Depressively perceived images of the surrounding world, pain and sadness.
Jiří Petrbok, thematically very autobiographic, depicts himself, his family and surroundings ever more in colours but with the same level of bizarreness and mystique. The mingling of his imagination and the world concerned thus creates a very original vision of the world.
Vladimír Skrepl, perhaps the most expressive of all, keeps repainting and recreating his pictures. They reflect his internal restlessness and search for the appropriate expression. The underlying layers of his paintings, which show through, witness this battle.
Marcel Hüppauff, now living in Hamburg, was a member of Akademie Isotrop along with André Butzer, Markus Selg and others. His distinctively expressionistic works, which have an extraordinary tradition in his country, depict a grotesque world of spectres and puppets. The author himself speaks about them as friendly creatures.
Despite these, sometimes sad, sometimes strange or grotesque visions, this joint exhibition of these artists brings pictures of high painting quality and an immediate vision of human society and the surrounding world, with all the sad and joyful feelings which accompany it.
