Pavel Příkaský / Sargasso Haven
Curator Martina Mrázová
Opening of the exhibition.
16 October - 20 November 2024
The paintings are flooded with organic structures resembling plant forms or cephalopod ink that dissolves in the clear waters of the sea. Shoots of abstract structures slowly conquer the entire picture surface and, like the black slime in Japanese anime, evoke feelings of uncertainty and perhaps even danger. Sometimes snake-like bodies of moray eels emerge from dark, cave-like crevices, their mouths gaping menacingly, while at other times the mass of paint forms into the shape of dead coral or ghostly flowers that have never seen sunlight. Behind the dense screen rests a hybrid being with the head of a deer and the body of a man, to whom the amorphous mass provides safety, nourishment and information. Human hands, as a materialized symbol of touch, thus represent only one possible form of communication and sharing in this interconnected ecosystem, but the real mediator between beings of different species is the viscous mass of colour.
The fascination with the plant kingdom - the morphology and survival strategies of different biological species - has become a defining feature of the exhibition, whose title refers to the legendary Sargasso Sea. Pavel Příkaský transforms the post-humanist consciousness of the interconnectedness of the biosphere, reflections on a more-than-human world and the motifs of hybrid beings into a strange world of paintings on the borderline of fantasy, mythology, prehistory and dystopian future, in which he looks for alternative environmental models and new forms of humanity.
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Pavel Příkaský (born 1985) is primarily a painter, but he often transcends the medium of painting. His exhibition projects combine contemporary environmental themes with archaic and mythological aspects, often drawing from the world of modern science. One of the central themes of Příkaský’s work is fluidity, which manifests not only in his painting technique but also in the intertwining of animal or hybrid beings with abstract structures. He perceives painting as a living process that sometimes expands from the canvases into the surrounding space, either through purely painterly interventions on gallery walls or in the form of waxes, gels, or textiles. Textile fibres often interconnect and ‘nourish’ the paintings or flow from the canvas like streams of colour onto the gallery floor. In addition to his solo projects, Příkaský has frequently collaborated with multimedia artist Miroslava Večeřová since 2013. Pavel Příkaský’s works are part of numerous private and public collections, including the Prague City Gallery.