Vojtěch Kovařík

Vojtěch Kovařík's (1993*) work is a pantheon in which the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology crowd together and where there are so many figures confined in frames too narrow to contain the weight of their own symbolism. These once extraordinary beings are no longer triumphant. They are summoned in paintings and sculptures in the style of the muralists Diego Riviera and José Clemente Orozco. Kovařík was also inspired by the national socialist art strategies prevalent before the collapse of the USSR, two years before being born in the Czech Republic. His paintings adopt the same principles: simplicity and clarity, use of symbols, exaggerated strokes, striking colors, uniformity, and repetition. Kovařík reveals the gap between the great ideologies and myths our culture and each of us inherit, and the way they perpetuate patterns of oppression. He is dedicated to deconstructing the authoritative, dismantling grand narratives and its heroes, leaving traces of individual mythology and giving them a new relevance. The artist rehumanizes these gods that were so distant, and in doing so, narrates the dilemmas of contemporary life, confronted with symbols too stifling to inhabit his history and experience of the world.