Series: Festive Tablecloths for Everyday Use

I can recall the drawing that preceded the cycle. I was messing about with different alternatives of “plaited” ornaments.
These were either line shapes as if threaded onto a central line, or the basic line was simply formed in some way by the shapes. All of the shapes were created using clean lines only. From a total of about thirty ornaments produced by this method I selected those whose composition I found to be emotionally the most charged and immediately proceeded to paint the first “table-cloth”. The painting was completed using only red to negatively delineate the white lines. As soon as it had been finished I immediately knew I had managed to tap into a resourceful spring again. Within several days I took it in a car to the second exhibition of the Chalupecký Award nominees and felt much better. It was only later that it occurred to me how strong the link is between those paintings and folk ornaments and I felt impelled to dig deeper into the subject of the ornament.
It had often happened to me that when I had somebody visiting from abroad they would ask me whether I was familiar with the culture of this or that tribe of primitive peoples. It would start me thinking whether or not by studying the principles
of the landscape, rhythms and relationships between them I might have gone down the same route. I was also intrigued by the fact that in some cultures and some periods doors and entrances would have geometric shapes. I intentionally avoid calling it decoration as they appeared there due to the magical practice of protecting the abode from threatening dark forces.