NEON : Štěpánka Šimlová

Czech Republic Prague Karlin Studios
The video quality is chosen according to your Internet connection.

The work of Štepánka Šimlová has played a fundamental part in defining and incorporating media painting into Czech art.

Her unique technique, characterized through the use of an expressive media language unclosed the romantic and many times moving levels imbedded in her work and connected them with elements of melancholic irony.

Š. Š. is well aware of the progression in work, as well as the developments on the Czech and the international art scene, resulting in the break from computer techniques and the return to a more spontaneous artistic method. This transition was apparent in her last exhibition at Karlin Studios (Tisloki, 2006), as well as the Vzduch Temže (Air of the Thames) project (huntkastner artworks), where the shift from allegory to subliminal perception targeting the individual mind of every spectator becomes clearly visible.

In her recent work Š.Š. invalidates post conceptual praxis. She avoids subjects that can be immediately questioned and focuses on things which are given, and are easier to deal with.

The exhibition is a concept of its own. A concept beyond the borders of straightforward understanding. A concept understood only through the connection with the spectator and his imagination. Is it an abstract dream? Is it a lyrical crime story? Or is it a form of abstract conceptualism?

The question of the “Neon” exhibition is the extent to which we are able understand the idea of idyll; its tempting nature, and our inability to ever really reach it. The show presents idyll in various pictures constructed through the language of abstract painting, the aesthetics of the 60′s and through elements derived from american films. Similarly to a lot of exhibitions by Š.Š, the show is partially and exhibition, partially theater. It could painting, but that would be too simple. It could be a scary movie, but that would be boring. We could view it as a series of scenes from the end of a film, but that would be too moving. It could also be personal, if it weren’t that strange.

Pavel Vančát

Here you can express yourself.

Selected from the same category