Adéla Součková

Adéla Součková is an artist for whom there is a fundamental relationship to the figurative and creative tradition of the media of painting and drawing on the one hand, and on the other is able to articulate her work across the intermedial situation of contemporary art. Her paintings, drawings, performances and installations are permeated by a comprehensively grasped poetics associated with the language of symbolic references, and a moment wherein the creative and physical gesture is made visible. The work of this graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Dresden is characterised by this unmistakable distinctiveness.

Součková’s early work is dominated by paintings in which she developed a symbolic language linking archetypal references with the question of female identity and physicality, and natural motifs. What was originally dense painterly modelling gave way to an emancipation of the line and an emphasis on the drawing gesture, still however taking place in the foreground of the painting. Gradually, other perspectives emerged that explored the possibilities of the creative gesture, for example in the form of a Chinese-influenced work with ink (the cycle Tušová malba / Ink Painting, 2013). An iconography that to begin with was reminiscent of ancient art in its complexity, gradually gave way to simply a few distinctive motifs (e.g. a forest, unicorn or deer) and themes (the works toying with the question of narcissism are particularly interesting in this respect). Drawing plays an increasingly important role in the artist’s work and is becoming a universal tool for expanding her activities to encompass other methods of presentation. Sometimes this might include the use of text. This is so in the case of her artistic book Atlas podkožních zážitků / An Atlas of Subcutaneous Experiences (2012), in which Součková explores her interest in the world of dreams and the archetypal symbolism referred to above.

In her more recent work Součková has moved beyond the surface of the canvas and the image and realises her drawings on the walls of galleries. “Drawing” in this respect is often not simply an outcome but a performative process, aided by the utilisation of fragile techniques like charcoal and chalk (Poslední soud / The Last Judgement, 2014). The artist enters into the work with her body and its motion as spread out in space. Sometimes she leaves traces of gestures (smearing) and corporeality (the recurring motif of the hand) behind her. These performative tendencies are manifest not only within drawing but through direct work with activities (the performance Bělení prádla / Bleaching the Linen, 2013) or the spoken word. Even in the sphere of more classically conceived paintings there is a tendency to accentuate the materiality and process of the creative gesture. A painted or drawn canvas might at the same time be a sheet or tablecloth, a projection, or a backlit membrane (the exhibition Starci u pramene / Old Men at a Spring, 2015).

New themes are entering Součková’s work that are nonetheless linked to its older iconography. This includes a confrontation of the world of nature, objects and immediate bodily experience with the tangible virtuality of our everyday digital interfaces. Although we see in this a reaction to the somewhat hackneyed concept of the post-internet, the artist handles the topic with a freshness of approach within the framework of an individualised aesthetic. She is moving into the sphere of ecology and the relationship we have with technology and the natural world. These themes then hook up to the handicraft and natural mysticism present in her work (the exhibition Hry V globus, 2015).

Adéla Součková is a loner who has combined the traditional role of artist and mysticism of an outsider with the current themes and forms of contemporary art. She has also moved into the sphere of literature and the symbolic imaginary, motivated by intense considerations of the creative, physical and performative artistic gesture.

Knihy:

2014 Questions, Divus, Praha2013 Atlas podkožních zážitků, s Nikolaou Čulíkem, Nakladatelství AVU a Ausdruck Books, Praha