A Chair, an Easel and a Model in a White Shirt

Zbyněk Sedlecký (born in 1976 in Ostrava) belongs to a distinguished generation of painters who entered the Czech art scene at the turn of the millennium. He graduated from FaVU in Brno (prof. Jiří Načeradský) and AVU in Prague (prof. Jiří Sopko). In the year 2000, he undertook a student residency at the Staatliche Akademie der bildenden Künste in Stuttgart, and, in 2003, at the Koninklijke Academie voor Shone Kunsten in Antwerp. Sedlecký gained his place on the contemporary art scene through projects such as Artnow.cz (2003, Prague), Resetting. Other Paths to Eternity (2007-08, Prague), participation in a long-term After the Velvet (2009-13, Prague), at the Liverpool Biennial (2010) or the project Ein Tanz (2011, Salzburg). His latest exhibition was held at Krokus gallery in Bratislava (2014). In his painting the author reflects shifts of visual perception and communication in an era modelled by techno-imagination. He subjects chiefly human memory in relationship to various environments (city exteriors, monuments, transit zones, public spaces, architecture, interiors, etc.) to experiments through which he influences the painting process itself.

For the Vyšehrad Gallery, Sedlecký has prepared a presentation of collection of images which reflect the educative environment of a tertiary art school where he himself teaches – hence the name of the exhibition “A Chair, an Easel and a Model in a White Shirt”. The process of teaching figurative drawing is “deconstructed” here, using school equipment (which reduces space), human figures (students, models) and lights which, through their compositional transformations, refer to physical time passing by outside the school windows. As if an illusion separating the safe haven of the school from the rest of the world was being cancelled out.