Retrospective exhibition curated by Tomáš Pospiszyl in former Wannieck Gallery (now Fait Gallery).

Reviews:

Pavel Netopil – Kvíčala’s Surface Strategies, Prostor, Zlín

Jiří Valoch – Petr Kvíčala: Waves, Ateliér

Pavel Netopil review:

Pavel Netopil, “Kvíčala’s Surface Strategies”-“Kvíčalovy strategie povrchu”, 2008

Petr Kvíčala’s paintings are an artificial variation of the rhythm of living nature. Genre-wise, they are based on Process Painting, or become monochromatic; they can also be part of a larger architectural whole or an independent painting installation. Basically, these are recurring lines – often wavy lines, gables, or loops, changing into a more or less complicated composition of an ornament or its part. Their layering and multiplication, “combinatorics” have a prefiguration in nature – as biochromatics, whose patterns the painter has been fulfilling more and more in recent years.

The latest Kvíčala’s exhibition proves that too. After several exhibitions from his own collection, at which the works of many authors were exhibited , the curator and artistic director of the Brno Wannieck Gallery, Richard Adam, took courage for a new, never before tried step. In the “large-capacity” exhibition area on the ground floor of a former factory hall (almost 3.000 m²) he here presented from early spring to late summer the works of a single author: draftsman and painter Peter Kvíčala (1960). This major retrospective, which included pictures from a period of more than twenty years, was prepared with the artist by Tomáš Pospiszyl. In chronologically arranged chapters, they were able to get across the most complete picture of Kvíčala’s extensive work, which stemmed from Neo-Conceptualism, from Process Painting, or even from folk or prehistoric examples of the use and function of ornament. The actual theme of the painting, based on the optimal rhythmisation of lines and surfaces, has been developed by the artist since the second half of the 1980s, when, after studying Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Brno, he began to work independently. Today, the artist also pursues design and collaborates with architects. He is an example of a self-made man in the best sense of the word. The starting point for his independent work was inspiration from the landscape around the Moravian Tišnov, which he simplified to an abbreviated form; a little later he came to a “freehand” geometrised ornament.

Despite the visible monothematicity, Kvíčala’s retrospective brought the audience a pleasantly surprising discovery. The innovation of the same need not automatically bring only boredom and exhaustion, since properly controlled changes may not be devoid of internal tension and dynamics. In Kvíčala’s version the “inexhaustible ornament” is a smooth bet on success and a meaningful career of the artist, which in many ways resembles the fairy tale of Hans, “who found happiness…”. However, let us not be fooled by the seeming simplicity and easiness of this story; the artist has never lacked his own vision along with diligence and determination. Both his life and artistic concepts have a rational viable background, and despite the outsider years, inspiring neglect and embarrassment, Kvíčala belongs today – despite bad prophets and deservedly so – among the outstanding artistic and pedagogical personalities of Czech art.