petr pastrňák / paintings

white unicorn gallery in klatovy

12. 11. 2016 - 15. 1. 2017

Petr Pastrňák hails from Ostrava, and although he lives in Prague and has spent the past 10 years in southern India as well, he frequently returns to the BeskydMountains of his youth.

Pastrňák is an artist of exceptional talent who works with the concept of guided chance and the literal tight-rope act of its painterly application. His paintings move freely across various genres from abstraction to photorealism.

Pastrňák is one of the most spiritual representatives of contemporary Czech art. He endeavors to, in his own words, dissolve the ego – i.e., that personality trait most common to the majority of artists. He doesn't paint what he sees before his eyes, but what is inside him, and so his paintings are not weighed down by personal baggage but reflect an effort at pure beauty and a kind of emptiness. Besides his pure abstract works based on a musical and automatic approach to painting, his “wide canvases” often contain specific people and places as well, although the viewer is still confronted with the transient or even delusional nature of this world.

Pastrňák, whose work can be found in the permanent exposition at the National Gallery's TradeFairPalace in Prague, does not exhibit often. Within the context of his past exhibitions, the current survey at the White Unicorn Gallery in Klatovy is one of the most extensive to date, featuring an overview of his paintings from the 1990s to the present day.

Exhibition curator: Lucie Šiklová

Video Václav Vojta

Photos Jiří Strašek