Unsuspected space between landscape and soul

Do people today still believe that landscape influences our consciousness? Are we still able to let it affect us or have we already lost the need to live in harmony with nature and ourselves?

Václav Cílek, the patron of the exhibition, claims that it is happening continuously but often unnoticed. The six young artists have focused on the relationship between landscape and the inner human landscape but have chosen a different approach than traditional landscape painters.
Man moves in the landscape and this movement becomes a determining moment of his consciousness as a reflection of his presence there. This process is gradually imprinted in the face of the landscape as well as in the consciousness of man. Man creates the appearance of the outer landscape which influences his soul and thus creates his own inner landscape.

The exhibition entitled “Unsuspected space between landscape and soul” presents the work of six young artists for whom landscape is a significant means of expression. Unlike traditional landscape painters they do not record reality. Landscape for them represents their own memory, an archive of emotions, colours and space. Each of them was influenced at some point in their lives by the face of the Czech landscape and its characteristic essence consequently became a part of their visual perception of landscape.
According to the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins a work of art is born if the inner landscape of the artist´s soul meets with a similar rhythm of the outer landscape. This link between landscape and human consciousness is also reflected by Václav Cílek in his book “Inner and outer landscapes”. For him the inner landscape means a kind of pattern or rhythm, the way something primary and creative inside us is divided. The entire conception of the exhibition is based on the idea how landscape influences the human psyche. Records of inner landscapes of each exhibiting artist, their metaphysical experience with the process of transformation of the outer landscape and the following interpretation of the change are important indicators showing the new approach of the coming generation of artists towards landscape. The expressive and almost gestic abstract paintings by Kristýna Šormová challenge the spectators to enter the space of the painting through a dense thicket of organic forms which makes us follow a golden light in the background.
Jan Uldrych is known for his work with atmospheric light and Turner-like atmosphere with whirling clouds. A tranquil or slightly meditative transposition of inner landscapes is characteristic of the prints by Robin Kaloč and also of the contemplative paintings by the painter known as The Maya. Tadeáš Kotrba enlivens his landscapes by dreamy, melancholy figures seen from the back so that they can live their own stories undisturbed. The photographer Tereza Příhodová appears as a performance artist for the first time and reflects the work of each one of the exhibiting artists through a performance in the central hall of the Hvězda Summer House.