Média

Interview for Interview magazine 10/24

1) You have an unusual beginning for a painter - you graduated from the Czech Technical University - majoring in chemical industry equipment. Does this mean that you are neither a child prodigy nor an artist obsessed with painting since childhood, but that you started your life during the previous regime quite normally and even working at factory ČKD?

All my artistic activity until the age of 42 was limited to drawings and caricatures, with which I passed the long classes and lectures. It never even occurred to me that I could ever paint pictures, even "full-time". I actually started painting by chance, because through my friend from ČKD I knew her niece, the painter Alexandra Jiříčková, who was then a student in Zdeněk Beran's classical painting studio at the Academy of Fine Arts. I really liked how Saša paints, so I also tried it, thinking that I could have painting as a hobby. Then I started attending courses for the public that the Academy of Fine Arts organized. The assistants who led the courses at the time evaluated my timid attempts favorably, and Peter Oriešek, who led the evening drawing courses for the public at the time, once asked me "Are you applying to the school?" I replied "You've gone crazy, do you know how old I am?". Then after a while he asked again, and I thought, why not? I was working as a self-employed person at the time and was quite flexible with my time. So I applied and Professor Beran took me on the first try, which I still don't quite understand. So at the age of 44 I started studying at the Academy of Fine Arts. I don't have it verified, but I think I was the oldest student of full-time studies in the history of the Academy of Fine Arts, two and a quarter centuries long.

2) By the way, when we came across your workplace, how did you experience the November events of 1989 there?

I was 26 at the time, I was in the factory for a short time, so I was more of an observer. I witnessed how characters were manifested and revealed in the sense of Čapek's saying "Whoever is decent, has always been decent". In the end, it turned out that the ČKD Dukla company ceased to exist, which, given the production program, did not have to happen at all.

3) Your next job was in the 90s: project manager at CzechInvest and executive director of Koruna Palace Management. At that time, did your muse still not kiss you or did you already tease her, but because of work you did not have much time for her?

As already mentioned, not at all. I did not notice any muse, she probably was not even present.

4) You did not start studying painting until you were 44 years old. Do you think it is an advantage, because you are already secured, have life experience and thus avoid mistakes and waste of time or on the contrary is it a disadvantage, because the youthful obsession and fervor are gone?

I consider it an advantage. I did not lack enthusiasm and I enjoyed the environment of the Academy after years spent in ordinary working positions. Another advantage is that at an older age you have life experience, so you appreciate the characterful people around you all the more and, on the contrary, you do not let yourself be influenced by the others.

5) In the years 2007-2013 you studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Was there a turning point when you were fed up with "ordinary jobs" and wanted to throw yourself in a different direction, or did you discover a talent and desire to paint and decided to change course in your life?

Actually, I did not think about it particularly deeply. Since I started school, the situation has developed in such a way that I have started to devote myself fully to fine arts. I have simply done and am doing what I enjoy. I have enjoyed a lot in my previous jobs, but I am really giving my 100% commitment only here.

6) At the same time, you also completed a sculpture preparation course. Did you not know which direction to go in - painting or sculpture - or did you feel that it was somehow interconnected and that in order to be good at it, you had to understand both fields? Do you prefer one of them?

As part of the preparation course at the Academy of Fine Arts, I became friends with Petr Oriešek, who led the course, a great sculptor and a person who encouraged me to devote myself to sculpture. I would like to, but I have little time (I started art 20 years later), and I do not have the conditions for sculpture, because I have a studio in an ordinary Prague apartment. Sculpture requires a lot of space, natural overhead light, a workshop, and is very "dirty" - you work with clay, you cast it in plaster. But I really enjoyed it, it's a man's job, even though there are also excellent female sculptors! So I did a few things and that's the end of this stage for me for now. But maybe I'll come back to it some other time.

7) It is written about you that "They try to revive and reconstruct pre-modern processes using contemporary materials", what should a layman imagine by that?

Painting, and realistic painting in particular, is set up on production technology, that is, on the way how to make it. It reached its peak in the 17th century, then, also due to the demise of the guild system, knowledge began to disappear. Even today, with the use of all kinds of analyses, our knowledge of the working methods of the old masters is limited. It is also important to take into account that until about the middle of the 19th century, when ready-made paints in tubes became widespread, painters prepared their own paints from pigments and binders, so that the paints had exactly the properties they needed. I create my own production processes and try to achieve similar effects to those used by the old masters. Painting, unlike photography, is material, made up of a layer of paint, has mass, volume, variable layer height, a surface with a different structure. Painting is actually a subset of sculpture, it is work with low color relief. It is the volumes and structures of the surface, together with purposeful focus or blurring, that allow you to create the illusion of space. My teacher Zdeněk Beran mastered this brilliantly.

8) Your paintings are beautiful, clean, detailed, they look like perfect photos. Did you develop this style gradually, or does technical education also play a role in this, i.e. a sense of detail, imagination, objectivity, purity?

That is difficult to answer. I simply do things the way I think they should be done. The opinion on what needs to be done, of course, develops in the same way as a person develops his painting skills, his ability to see - it may not seem like it, but it is not self-evident - and how the artistic opinion is refined. I consider the peak of painting to be the ability to paint with a certain degree of relaxation, expressiveness and abbreviation, but in such a way that everything is there. Some contemporaries of Rembrandt and Velásquez had a similar opinion, who gave them as an example in this regard. Among our contemporaries, Zdeněk Beran was able to do this, and his cycles "The Large Picture Torsos" and "Buttocks" (he really painted buttocks, and masterfully) have no analogues in contemporary world painting. I am trying to approach this concept.

9) You have beautiful portraits, detailed paintings of an engine block or a bicycle suspension, nudes or skulls. Do you jump thematically according to your mood and current state of mind or are you a perceptive person, something catches your eye and you go to the canvas in the morning, transfer your impression to it and don't finish until you "materialize" it?

Painting, especially realistic painting, is very time-consuming, so working based on your current mood hardly possible. I simply work on ideas that seem meaningful to me and from which I expect a good result. My area of interest is broader and my work is somewhat thematically diverse, but I hope that it doesn't get boring also because of that. As the number of paintings slowly grows, they are composed into larger thematic units.

10) How do you combine painting with sketches and sculptures? Do you take it as a break from the other discipline, something like "creative hygiene" or do you know that something will be better as a sculpture and, on the contrary, you just want to draw something with a pencil?

As mentioned earlier, I´ am currently not doing sculpture. Otherwise, sketches and drawing studies are a common part of preparing for painting a picture. In my opinion, for realistic painting, it is necessary to master drawing. Drawing is a difficult discipline, I studied it much beyond the normal requirements at school.

11) We saw your exhibition at the Toyen Gallery in Vinohrady. You already have had many exhibitions, how does it work, do you appeal to galleries or you organize exhibitions yourself?

It varies, sometimes I am approached by galleries, other times I organize the exhibition myself. In the past, I have collaborated with several galleries, today it is mainly the Navrátil Gallery in Karlín. The Toyen Gallery, where I am exhibiting until the end of May 2024, belongs to Prague 3, and I am exhibiting here as a citizen of the Free Republic of Žižkov (quarter in Prague).

12) You studied with Mr. Knížák, whose abstract work we do not understand and do not like, but we rather think that you are closer to Mr. Theodor Pištěk, whose paintings of motor sports are legendary. Did you learn something from him or was he perhaps something of a role model for you in your youth?

I like Theodor Pištěk and I visited his large exhibition in the Veletržní Palace several years ago several times and enjoyed it very much. I meet with him on some topics, but I use different technological procedures and my philosophy and goals are also different. I respect Professor Knížák as one of the most interesting people I have met. It is a pity that the wider public in our country does not know about him, that, for example, in the field of action art, he was at the forefront of world events in the early sixties, even under conditions of communist isolation.

13) Jan Werich used to say when looking at himself in the mirror "We are all someone". What is it like to make a self-portrait? Do you have to be a tough, unbiased realist who suppresses hidden narcissism, for example, or do you look into the corners of your soul and learn something about yourself to transfer it to the canvas?

I enjoy self-portraits. But since I find people who take themselves too seriously ridiculous, I include a certain amount of self-irony and fun in my self-portraits. I include references to old masters in some self-portraits, for example, "Self-portrait in a bathing cap" is full of references. Sometimes someone notices.

14) It is not easy to make a living from art these days. How are you doing, are you already a self-sufficient artist, or is it just a "supplement" to the family budget and you have to earn money elsewhere?

Since I do not necessarily have to work for the market and sell, I have a certain freedom in terms of choosing topics and relationships with gallery owners. Of course, selling a painting is important, it is confirmation that there is real interest in your work.

15) How and what you paint, is it some new style that you are creating or is it already named and you are just developing it beyond the given boundaries?

In the 1960s and 1970s, artistic styles called photorealism and hyperrealism emerged, within which I can be included. However, I would like to do, and perhaps I do, also following my teacher Prof. Zdeněk Beran, things, that fall outside the usual definition of the above-mentioned styles.

Thank you for the interview

Vítek Formánek a Eva Csölleová