16 Feb 2010

Veronika Holcova at Jiri Svestka Berlin

As third exhibition at its Berlin dependance the Jiri Svestka Gallery is showing most recent paintings by the young Czech artist Veronika Holcova.

Under the title Onerous Past, Uncertain Future Holcova presents mostly larg-sized canvases from the years 2008 till 2010. This is her first exhibition in Berlin. Her uncommon topic draws from literature (important authors for her are e. g. Michel Houellebecq or Haruki Murakami) as well as from dreams and her own visions. Her paintings open a world of hominids, the ancestor of mankind, who however can be also interpreted as their descendants. The Czech culture with its focus in surealism of the 30's with significant representatives the paintress Toyen and the painter and photographer Jindrich Styrsky is also becoming a source for her world.

Veronika Holcova's paintings provoke strong emotions. Either they acquire devoted admirers – or just as rigorous critics. The artist herself claims that, from her experience, her paintings work on the basis of longer observation – and that one has to look his/her way in. In observing Veronika Holcova's painting, the viewer becomes a pilgrim. Just like her hominids, viewers must shoulder their way, or perhaps wade through the phantasmagorical landscapes of her paintings. She has created an entire series of these anthropoids, these erect hominids, these people on a pilgrimage. And the pilgrimage from a dark past into an uncertain future leads through the apocalypse. 'I fill my paintings with two worlds which can never meet in time, but only in your mind,' says Veronika Holcova about her work. The artist melts her childhood memories, findings and experiences into imagery stories. The second part of the exhibition shows a whole series of landscapes that are opening up with a magma, with the heat of blood. Holcova changes the icy wasteland of her pilgrims into a spring earth.

Moreover on the occasion of this exhibition the Czech renowned author Jachym Topol has written a text Joy in the Wasteland as his confession face to face with Holcova´s canvases.

Veronika Holcova (born 1973) lives and works in Prague. Between the years 1993 and 2000 she studied at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. This is for the third time, that she is being exhibited at the Jiri Svestka Gallery. Moreover she exhibited at the Albrecht Gallery in Munich in the years 2006 and 2007. Last year she participated at the Prague Biennale 4 and in 2008 at the Mediations Biennale in the Polish Poznan. The most significant exhibitions presenting her work include e. g. Central Europa Revisited II at the Esterhazy castle in the Austrian Eisenstadt or Micro Narratives at the Museé d`Art Moderne in Saint Etienne, France. Her work is represented in a number of private and public art collections in the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Germany, Great Britain and the US.