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In his ongoing exploration to the possibilities and limits of painting, Jaromír Novotný (°1974, Český Brod, Czechoslovakia) provides abstraction with new substance. Creating neither merely formal nor conceptual work, the artist outlines the restrictions and possibilities of the painterly medium, the working process and the importance of the material.

 

A few years ago, Novotný  started to work on synthetic organza, sewing pieces of fabric together and stretching them over a wooden frame. It gives his paintings – in combination with the ‘color field approach’ of the plane – a certain fragility.  In his more recent work, Novotný is incorporating elements of robust canvas, sometimes even using it to cover the total verso of the painting.

Geometrical cut-outs and thinly painted layers of acrylic contrast with the more organically shaped yarn holding the organza together. Not hiding the artistic process, Novotný subtly incorporates elements such as ripped pieces of fabric, dust that settled on the wet surface or traces of watered-down paint. By using different levels of transparency, he goes beyond the 'flat plane' of the painting, incorporating the space between the canvas and the wall. Novotný’s paintings are dynamic. Forcing the eye to shift from the overall work towards the relation with its various fields and their edges, they provide the viewer with different levels of reading. 

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