Filip Černý

Filip Černý has a knack for creating a new image of the world. When he sees a landscape, he is not content just to copy it down. He has to go a step further. His path leads to the subject matter, to the space, to the landscape that he is viewing. He is inclined to understand that which he sees otherly, in another manner. He tries to pick that which is important from the offered and seen shapes and extract them and create from them a new composition: one that is cleaner, clearer and less complicated and thus much more comprehensible. He uses various painter’s processes to define individual landscape elements. That which is solid has a clear shape in his pictures and as a rule is sprayed through a stencil – a stone, a cliff, a tree. That which has a mutable shape has this feature set aside and is emphasised by the use of spray paint and its traces – a waterfall, fire, an explosion. Some forms used overlap one another, while others achieve a mutual contrast. The author finds a lawfulness in his chosen processes based on the functioning of general vision. Awareness of this structure, when the eye focuses or on the contrary cannot read something, or needs time to do so, has led Černý to experiment with the human retina. The artist breaks from sight and makes records of thought. Therefore he can create a leopard landscape, where the hills shown are covered with black spots, underscoring for the human eye the illusion of a rugged landscape framework. A „forest“ composed of mere multi-tone stripes of vertically-barking colours can function in a similar way. His pictures also evoke curiosity (what does he mean by that), for the human brain naturally mixes sight and thought and inquires after meaning. In this place we can see the cunning smile of Filip Černý, who from the position of image magician invents word games, puzzles and traps for the viewer’s curious vision. From the visual point of view water is a noteworthy force, for it functions in many ways. Its surface mirrors the objective world. When it moves it leads to the deformation of the reflected image. A look under the surface lets its constricted luminosity give the impression of cramped space.

At the moment when the artist places a scuba diver into this environment, an image world bursting with meanings that need not be precisely named is created. It’s enough to remain at the image of the human form deformed by its own movements. A symbol changing its shape under certain conditions – that is how you can characterise the leitmotif of Černý’s paintings. The chosen symbol can be the landscape, water, a scuba diver, a female nude, yet also an interior, a detail from an interior represented by an appliance (a washing machine) or a select work of art, which due to its own repetition has also become unrecognisable and a generally-accepted „icon.“ The image becomes a submarine ride below the canvas, where the viewer feels individual spatial planes – the far off depths and the details right before his/her eyes.

Should we wish in some way to characterise Filip Černý’s approach to painting, then that would be his authoritative search for some new language, image speech, through which he could, for himself, understand what he wants and what he wishes to communicate. The artist sees the image as a particular means of communication, which has its own rules. One can take up his or her own stand against these rules, but at the same time must comply with their necessary life functions. He transforms the image space with utmost respect for its given order.

Vitvar Jan H., Filip Černý, katalog Černého Petra má Zbyněk - Galerie Brno, 21. 10. - 4. 12. 2005, s. 30

Vaňous Petr, Filip Černý, katalog Černý Petr - AJG Wortnerův dům, České Budějovice, 13. 7. - 10. 9. 2006, s. 23

Staub Helena - Vaňous Petr - Tučková Kateřina, katalog Nová trpělivost/ New Patience, Výstavní síň Mánes, Praha, 5.2. - 4.3. 2007, s. 70

P. Vaňous, Resetting/ Jiné cesty k věcnosti/ Alternative Ways To Objektivity (katalog výstavy), GHMP - Městská knihovna, 21. 12. 2007 - 23. 3. 2008, nestr., Praha 2008

Lahoda Vojtěch, Jak se propírá malba, Tvar 17/2004, s. 13

Vaňous Petr, Proměnlivé "ráje" Filipa Černého, Ateliér 12/2004, s. 4

Pesch Miroslav, Intercity: Berlin - Praha, Ateliér, roč. 17, č. 20, 2004, s. 5

Orlita Lukáš, Černého Petra má Zbyněk, Ateliér 24/2005, s. 12

Vaňous Petr, Cyklus Madonamie, A2 kulturní týdeník 11/2006, s. 27

Vaňous Petr: Malířská škola Jiřího Sopka, A2 kulturní týdeník 17/ 2006, s. 8

www.youtube.com/watch

www.novinky.cz/kultura/170001-filip-cerny-muze-to-pusobit-jako-fetisisticky-objekt.html

www.advojka.cz/archiv/2009/14/videoart-strikany-a-malovany

artycok.tv/lang/cs-cz/2788/videoart/