SCREEN

The combination of geometric abstraction and figural realism, simplicity and complication, impersonality and intimity is the main feature of the exhibition of Michal Pechoucek’s works named Screen.Michal PechoucekThe word “screen” could be understood as a wall, a curtain, a partition, a shield, a projection screen, a TV screen, a filter – or as a verb describing the act of overcasting, covering, protecting, concealing. I have selected this word, with its multiple meanings, to name my exhibition with, as it also features several related motifs – several bevels of a single theme, which also indirectly touches the walls, partitions, light, shade, projection, as well as protection and secrets.
The first part of the exhibition is represented by pairs of paintings, which are installed over a wall from each other, both depicting two different types of observational delights. From one side, the paintings sort of terrorise with its frosty abstraction, whilst from the other, objective side, they reveal the genre situation – getting changed behind beach screen or undressing at doctors’ (or something of the kind). The person who has been caught in this slightly embarrassing situation ideally serves as a model. The motif of the painting is a self-conscious posing and self-expressing with body language. At the same time, the paintings put on an intimate scene without any witnesses. The characters wishfully look into the inside depth of the painting – into the sharp counter-light – thus serving as some kind of guardians of the gates or of some odd universe beyond the picture.
The second part of the exhibition is made of black-and-green abstract paintings, which are, at the same time, objective representations (still-lives). They are linked with a motif of simple geometric concretes – of surfaces depicted in perspective and levitating in space. The individual shapes of the concretes have been taken over from the old sale catalogues from the 30s, advertising garden, seasonal and foldaway furniture by the means of photographic reproduction. The only thing left from the furniture is the simple diagram of the geometrical construction. The stylisation and subsidiary function of geometry is also acknowledged here, especially in terms of the reduction principles of the commencing abstract art. The colour scheme of the paintings is derived from the later first digital monitors.
The third part of the exhibition features paintings with reclining naked figures, which are apparently asleep: their attitude to the observer is indifferent – unaware. A vertically patterned towel forms the centrepiece of the paintings, which, used as a waistcloth, covers the genitals. The figures from this horizontal cycle kind of levitate “before” or “behind” the cloth screen with a beach pattern.
The obvious leitmotif of the exhibition entitled Screen is the combination of geometric abstraction with figurative realism – geometry being the messenger of both logical and intuitive thinking, realism being the ambassador of the past, of the tradition, symbolism and of iconographic genres. It is the intention to combine simplicity with complexity, impersonality with intimacy, blankness with pathos.
Michal Pechoucek