Vladimír Véla

Vladimír Véla originally entered the sphere of painting with propositions and ideas that he got from his previous education – trade. As a graduate of the Turnov Secondary Art Technical School he originally worked as an ironmaster. Equipped with this experience he then applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Painting represented a certain challenge for him – to master the fine arts means of expression, which led him to working on perfecting the illusion of painting. That is also why he chose to study in the studio of classical painting techniques, which was then led by Professor Zdeněk Beran. Later, however, he encountered limitations of this approach and out of the need to overcome the distance of the depicted and to enter the immediate process of the actual creation – something like its performance phase, he transferred to the Studio of Intermedia Work headed by Milan Knížák.

On one side, Véla radicalized his form into iconic abbreviations and symmetric symbols, while on the other side, he created something like a video, process performance – an emphasis on the actual physical participation during the creation of a painting, which remains as an anthropological imprint of the present time in the morphology found (it appears somewhere in the title of the work). The expressive throttling form perfectly took over the character of emotions and inward prolapses somewhere from the grey zone of the subconscious, without tying it down and closing it into some specific narrative iconography.

Vladimír Véla has been continuously drawing inspiration for themes through his natural contact with nature. He titled his thesis work Discreet and Indiscreet Landscapes (Krajiny diskrétní a indiskrétní) (2006). He created a collection of paintings on the topic of Christian feast days, under the surface of which appear ancient rituals, cults and mysteries stored in the memory of landscapes. Véla perceives the natural scope as a hosting structure for possible “phenomena” and “miracles”, as an open setting for hallucinatory situations, such as space for ritual ecstasies or a place of experiences, which come out of small or repeated observations (Dutina, Stín, Sova) (Cavity, Shadow, Owl). The artist gets similar inspiration from objects, spaces and architecture from his surroundings, which serve the function of acting as clues and reading keys in his paintings (Česáček, Kyproplej, Nádoba, Kaple, Relikviář ad.) (Fruit Picker, Container, Chapel, Reliquary and others). 

Hence, on one side the artist builds a painting from zero, in a Boudník way he starts with a blot that he calls a stain. It then suggests other associative procedures to him, the correcting of which turn into his own construction of the painting process. On the other side the painting comes close to a certain material theme, the form and intensity of which is concealed in the subconscious from where it uncontrollably flows into an open painting form. The tension between both polarities leads to the core, which is affected precisely by the painting of Vladimír Véla. This core is a hardly definable area, where something starts to be born and literally materializes out of this chaotic, indistinguishable mass – Contracting, Borderline, Dividing Line (Stahování, Rozhraní, Předěl). What interests and fascinates Véla is the phase of the transformational transition referring to the preceding and subsequent phases. The painting is then stopped by the process, which best testifies about the function of the actual painting – to be a form that is capable of not only interpreting this tractable story, but also analogically – in an intensive way – give a vivid picture of it.

Sympozia: 14. ročník Sympozia Jenewein, Kutná Hora

Vaňous, Petr: Černá hodinka (výstavní katalog), Galerie Dům, Broumov 2012, ISBN 978-80-905258-0-1 Tetiva, Vlastimil – Vaňous, Petr: Kyproplej (výstavní katalog), Oblastní galerie v Liberci a Alšova jihočeská galerie v Hluboké nad Vltavou 2010, ISBN 978-80-85050-82-0 (OGL); 978-80-86952-37-6 (AJG) Vaňous, Petr: EX: Není lhostejné, kde právě jsme (výstavní katalog), Galerie Caesar, Olomouc 2013 Kroupová, Markéta: Pod Ještědem. Současná výtvarná scéna Liberecka, Liberec 2013, ISBN 978-80-87289-22-8 Vaňous, Petr: Motýlí efekt? (katalog), Galerie Rudolfinum, Praha 2013, ISBN 978-80-86443-22-5 Kovář, Petr: Vladimír Véla: Dutiny (katalog), Galerie OFFormat, Brno 2012. Vaňous, Petr: EX (výstavní katalog), Topičův salon, Praha 2011. Vaňous, Petr – Gerboc, Martin: Saatchiho předsíň / Texty o současnosti v malbě, Bratislava – Praha 2010. Umění přelomu tisíciletí ze sbírek NG v Praze 1990 - 2009, 2009 Cena NG 333 a skupiny ČEZ – finalisté 2009 V. Zlínský salon mladých, 2009 Paint, 2009 Cena NG 333 a skupiny ČEZ – finalisté (katalog), NG, Praha 2008 Defenestrace, 2008 Diplomanti AVU, AVU, Praha 2006 III. Zlínský salon mladých, 2003 Vaňous, Petr: Pavel Holas, Vladimír Véla: No in no out, Galerie Millenium, Praha 2003

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