Knupp gallery and David Kolovratník
cordially invite you to the exhibition
"YOU FEEL THE ROOTS GROWING THROUGH YOUR HEAD"
opening on 17.9.2020 from 7 pm
Revoluční 17, Prague 1
The exhibition will run until 8.10.2020
MO by appointment
TUE - FRI 10:30 am - 7 pm
SAT 11 am - 6 pm
David Kolovratník (born 1978)
He graduated from a technical high school in Hradec Králové. Until 2015 he worked as a prosthetic technician in orthopaedics. He has been painting intensively since 2009 and has also developed his experience in semester courses of painting at Scholastica in the studio of Jitka Mikulicová.
A fundamental part of David's work was initially based on old photographs, or rather on an inherited family archive, fragments of which served as a template for large-scale paintings. Over time, out of his own interest, but also thanks to sudden events in the world, he began to focus on the theme of instability, the uncertainty of human existence and the fragility of everything that is more or less familiar and close to us. He presented these motivations and inner feelings through a "house of cards" that can collapse at any moment. His card constructions can symbolize both interpersonal relationships and related ideas of fleeting certainties, as well as general laws operating in this world, but which can change unexpectedly for various internal or external reasons and transform into completely different relationships. They may then bring about a series of disappointments, uncertainties and a loss of oneself in oneself and therefore in the world around.
At first glance, the artist's subsequent work developed in a completely opposite direction, but its contrasting nature makes logical and emotional sense. David Kolovratník has gone through his own imaginary journey as an artist, but perhaps also as a person who could represent each of us. A man-artist who, from feelings full of uncertainty and instability in our own actions and behaviour, gets to the symbol of roots, back to the foundations of being. The roots in their emblem represent something solid and permanent. Something that brings a necessary sense of permanence and certainty to our lives. Something that we can hold on to imaginatively, but also physically. Roots, then, represent the complete opposite of the "house of cards", but that is why they are so closely and inextricably linked. Roots hold plants firmly in the ground, anchoring them in place and giving them stability; the same is true of family roots, and by extension those that are natural to the whole human or animal community. However, despite various warning signs, our society often neglects, ignores or even rejects and denies these facts. This leads to a certain flimsiness of our whole action and to the consequent downfalls. The artist tries to communicate all these aspects through his large-format canvases, of which six will be presented in the exhibition.
The idea of the bloodstream is also reflected in the paintings, for just as veins and arteries nourish and ensure the functioning of our physical bodies, the waterways work in a similar way. Water bodies in the form of streams, rivers and coastal deltas not only look the same, but their function is similar - to provide beneficial nutrients to plants and trees, which then use their network of roots to supply and distribute these nutrients throughout their "bodies".
David Kolovratník's canvases can function as totems or altars. You can start your own spiritual journey in front of them and come to self-awareness. Alternatively, they can lead you to reflect on things you are unconsciously certain of without having rational reasons for it, or to realize what "holds each of you together" and what gives you the possibility and feeling to really live, whether in a real or figurative sense.
Text by Kristina Pourová - curator.
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