CHUJKY LENKA ČERNOTOVÁ

The collection of paintings and sketches by Lenka Černotová, which we are presenting in this, her first solo exhibition, is a continuation in content and title of her series of works, which she graduated with last year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the Graphic Art II studio of Professor Vladimír Kokola. The notion of Čujka is a new form of the artist. It encompasses all the main ingredients of her work: intuition, heightened sensory perception, mystery and a certain degree of strangeness.

Wolves have long been the central theme of Lenka Černotová's work. The wolf, as a symbolic spiritual leader embodying the totality of the qualities she wanted to identify with, has accompanied her work since the beginning of her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. It was and is for her an icon of wildness, freedom, strength, determination and solitude. At first, she succumbed to her inner wolves charmingly and gave them maximum space until they took complete control of her. The wolves took over her inner world, her creativity, her personal life and her imagination. It wasn't until about a year ago that she decided to make a stand against them. In her paintings, alongside the otherwise obligatory wolf silhouette, Lenka's human - female - figure appears for the first time. She is no longer subordinate to them, but becomes their partner - and begins to control them. This position allows her to abstract not only their bodies, but also to "zoom in" on their individual sensory organs - ears, eyes, snout, and even fur - and enlarge them so that the original model is hardly traceable. The readable story and concrete subject matter were overwhelmed by the intensity of the colour surfaces. Nevertheless, behind each painting there is a realistic study, but this serves only as a formal formula to direct the composition. In a process of gradual simplification, the painter extracts from it massive monolithic shapes, which she transforms into luminous radiators using colour. This gradual process is evidenced by a series of sketches, which are of equal value to the artist herself as the resulting - mostly large-format paintings. Notes, records of sudden feelings and thoughts, together with sketches, often remain a distinct part of the works themselves - there are no mistakes, only traces. The paintings thus become a mental map, a record of the process of their own creation.

The radiation of the imagined final shape seems to be gradually burning away its concrete precursor, leaving pulsating, transparent, disembodied surfaces. Although they may appear monochromatic, they are the result of many layers that the artist has painted over, scraped through, punched through and overlaid again to achieve the desired colourful, even fluorescent brightness, which she achieves primarily through the use of various cadmium tones along with other materials such as reflective ironworker's chalk or her own patented iron pigment. The compact yet vibrant emanation of the coloured surfaces has a magnetic power - it dominates the space and absorbs the viewer. The artist herself describes them as "buildings with their own psyche", as being endowed with their own energy. What you put into it, it will be there! - is her motto.

For Lenka Černotová, painting is a sixth sense, a means to embrace both the external and her inner reality. Through painting she literally touches reality. She often paints with her hands, and physical contact with the paint and the substrate is important to her. There is something almost amorous in her relationship with each painting. She calls the coloured surfaces "touched places". This adds to the feeling of a "blind painting" that brings out the colourful tension of the inner eye, colours that assert themselves so massively that they are almost palpable - so powerful is their energy.             

Terezie Zemánková, February 2016