works / Neviditelnost / Invisibility
Gallery Villa Pellé, 5th August—29th September 2016
Invisibility was preceded by an exhibition called The Garden ten years ago in the Prague gallery Hollar (2006) where the artist introduced drawings inspired by natural processes. Invsibility was however also formed by the project Learn to Stand on One Leg and to a great extent follows the aesthetics and spirituality of that project. Characteristic of Invsibility is working with acrylics in an almost watercolour-style. The gentle layering of watery shades of ink is reminiscent of both Chinese and Japanese painting. Kamila completed these layers with fragments of natural patterns of intense colours and clearly defined shapes. The paintings are inspired by the dynamics of natural processes, but they also point to something further. They capture energy, unity of polarities, cyclicality of life. Their abstract form is not a superficial aesthetic choice, but is derived from the desire to capture the flow of the life force, connecting opposites and bridging the illusion of duality. The paintings resonate to how Oldřich Král describes the multilayered term Tao: “Tao […] is a generally present force, […] is the universality of things, is the path along which things return to their source. Tao is how things happen in the universe, and thus how the universe itself happens; Tao is the source from where things come to their identity.”
The exhibition also includes a canvas ten metres long with a monochrome ink painting. Black ink diluted by water forces its way over the canvas in the form of unrestrained splashes and puddles. The intensity of the colour fades and then grows again, reflecting the processual nature of existence. Clearly defined shapes suddenly dissolve into vague watercolour pools — the perspective of view is changing. From the haze of light grey a few fixed points abruptly emerge — a seizure of intensity. The passage of time, and change in perception — the rhythms of various periods in life — strengthening of forms and then their fading — tension and harmony. Everything merges in the unity of a spontaneous painterly gesture.
All complexity is but an illusion — yet how much effort, desire and time is needed to learn to perceive the real nature of things, let alone to communicate it! Too fierce an effort could be a hindrance — perhaps the greatest skill is to allow the force to manifest itself. As the monk Shitao says: “Yet when we prepare our ink and grasp our brush, it would make no sense to wait until we imagine the right kind of mountain peak and the right kind of fold. Indeed, as soon as the first line lands on the paper, other lines follow it, and once we have used a certain way of painting, others will smoothly join in.” The intuitive and spontaneous manner of Kamila’s painting is
possible precisely because it already incorporates years of observation, cognition, exercise and reflection.¨
Curator: Helena Cox