Artistic news from Tomàš Jetela is marked by two simultaneous exhibitions… “Sunset” in the Galerie Špejchar in Chomutov (until March 28th) and “Sediments” in the DOT Contemporary Art Gallery in Bratislava (until April 14th).
Two exhibitions?… rather a double exhibition and double exposure… unity into the distance… teleportation…
He is a player and strategist, always one step ahead… playing both colors on the chessboard… a single board… a common bond. Either chess or exhibition… the game starts with an opening!…
What unites a former Jesuit church from the 17th century and a former heating plant from the 40’s (Jurkovičova Teplárna)… baroque vs. functionalism?… A sense of light and geometry… From the ceiling and oculi of Špejchar to the industrial windows of Jurkovičova Teplárna, lines cross and design patterns in space… as well as on the canvases. Tomàš Jetela is a Genius Loci… he could not ignore the history of the place… the rhythm and the atmosphere. This moment of communion is an integral part of the work and experience.
Past paintings are reborn in a new context while new compositions were created… gridded, sliced, squared… Back in 2022, Tomàš Jetela already introduced the viewer to a new form of defragmentation and pixelation of the pictures… during the Magic Monsters exhibition in the gallery Novà Siň in Prague. Questioning the identity, the reality and fiction… the artist is, this time, less in the science-fiction than in the illusion… a game of perception through the pattern and dimensions. It’s a template of the imagination… a viewer’s divagation and hallucination… visions.
He designs another story and another dream… a new life for his figures… kissed by the light and the eyes. Light squares and dark squares, it’s a game design… a grid-based movement… conditioning the viewers placement, position… predicting his next move to win all his attention… to win the game of seduction… checkmated!
Both exhibitions are a recollection of the past merging with present time like sediments… Maybe even the provocation of a time paradox… rewriting the history of a place… repainting the identity of his own work… reshuffling the cards of existence. As much as the personality changes and evolves through life and experiences, the figures never stay the same… an eternal work in progress… questioning oneself and self-actualization … introspection for the best. If the viewer followed the artist for some time, he would notice this displacement on the existential board… subtel revolutions. He may feel this awkward sensation of a déjà-vu without understanding why… because the context of the exhibition, the titles, the figures have changed and the faces he thought he knew well are unknown again… a strangeness of the ordinary. The relation between the viewer and the figure is back to scratch… they are meeting again… for the very first time… everything to learn from each other. Is there anything to show or to hide?… it’s a beautiful truth and a beautiful lie… a dreamt reality and disguise. The artist is a chessmaster and the viewer, a piece in his hand! It’s up to the viewer to play the game… be a simple piece, a king or a queen… checkmated!
Remembering “Justina” with “Julietta” in a picture of the studio in April 2022… she was half naked in a pure light with a book and flowers. Maybe she was reading the forbidden book of Sade. Recognising her, triumphant, on the wall of the DOT gallery, she becomes a goddess of light… rising like the sun : “Aphrodite Bathed in Golden Brightness”. She has never been so beautiful and powerful… no longer a misfortune virtue but a glorious vice in chiaroscuro. Black squares and the warm aura of a golden hour… is she standing outside or inside… is she emitting or receiving light… is she the light or darkness… is she a literary fiction or a real woman… is she a goddess of love? It’s like a stencil of shadow… the projection and fragmentation of a window on her skin… like on the walls of the studio or the gallery now. It’s an instant of grace into the confusion of plans and positions. The viewer doesn’t know if she’s in front or behind the glass… if she’s sharing the same space, dimension and life… reachable… She’s a queen on a chessboard… moving far and fast… in all directions!
Different process, same confusion, the Red Penetration is in the direct lineage of the previous exhibition “X-Hyde Star Ancient Rhymes” in the Galerie Jedna in Prague in December 2023. With Pumpkin Penetration, they form a new corpus of Vanitas. Those compositions are double-edged… tainted by a dreamlike erotism and death… a moral provocation and connotation. Life and sexuality appear like a still-life… pleasure and decay… sins and passions… the essence of guilt and freedom. While the dislocated body and death’s embrace of the Pumpkin Penetration can remind the vaporous iconography of the Death and the Maiden… the Red Penetration is a complex combination of baroque and virtual eras… time paradoxes. The figure seems to be trapped into this new matrix like a Tetris game… a confusion of layers… existing at the same time on the background and foreground… crumbling. The contrast between vivid colors and black, as well as between blue and red creates a big tension across the scene… the indistinctive psychology of erotic and violence… consciousness pushed into the body and mind… bloody and passionate. It’s a realm of nightmares and dreams… hallucinations… an erection of symbols and data… a burning light and consciousness. Red hand, “Red Host”, skull, mushrooms… and burning candle. As Freud once wrote… “an overwhelming majority of symbols in dreams are sexual symbols”.
So if one is not ready to dream… rather not falling asleep… but “the dream is the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter”. And what about an art made of dreams?..
More info :
https://www.instagram.com/tomasjetela/
ABSTRACT MIMESIS 