Feature: Exhibition - Martin Krupik at Good Human Gallery
Published: 28 July, 2011
ANYONE who has ever stared into a fire and watched as the flames spat, crackled and danced into shapes will understand something of the magic and mystery that are the themes of Czech artist Martin Krupik. Vivid slashes of colour burst from the darkness on his canvases, twisting and mutating into forms while you gaze – a bird with a fiery train of tail feathers, a wizened face, the spiralling double helix of DNA. Of course, there is nothing of the sort in these paintings, merely strokes and scratches through layers of oil paint, but what is intriguing is how our neurons and synapses seek relentlessly to make sense of the world around us. It is a process that psychologists have sought to shed light on for decades, yet with all the advances of neuroscience we are still little closer to understanding.
Perspective, the title of this exhibition of Krupik’s oil paintings and sculptures, brings questions of perception and consciousness sharply into focus as you take in his works. Empedocles vs Newton is striking, somehow capturing the flavour of grand 18th century painters, but with muted neons suggesting a futuristic vision of heaven; or hell. There is something of Hieronymus Bosch here and of Salvador Dali too, both artists that the self-taught Krupik lists as influences, but his abstract expressionism is far from their styles. His illusions on canvas are created through the techniques of impasto and sgraffito – applying thick layers of paint, then using a tool to scrape through the paint, revealing the colours concealed below.
One of the standout pieces in the show is an interactive installation, The Synthetic Plant of Doctor Varanasi. A mass of Perpex sticks towering improbably upwards, lit along their lengths by LEDs and rigged with motion and sound sensors, it responds gently to any noise or movement from viewers. Its strange beauty is compelling and stirs thoughts about light and how we perceive light and move through our environment. Like many of Krupik’s pieces here, look for longer than a moment and it pulls you into its world. The viewer becomes acutely aware of the mental processes we automatically undergo, as the mind straight away sets to composing worlds within worlds on the canvas. We have no choice in the phenomenon; this is the way our brains are wired, to order the disorder surrounding us.
Some paintings suggest biological matter, a coincidence of my own construction, or stemming from the fact that the artist studied biology at university? The information accompanying the exhibition tells us that Krupik channels his art from a deeper state than the everyday mindset, using methods such as meditation to relax the mind before applying paint to canvas. He says any attempt to manipulate images as they begin to take form is resolutely avoided; the process becomes automatic and so bypasses the temptation of conscious intervention. What we see depends on our individual memory, thought, and genetic hardwiring.
Leaving the exhibition, the viewer has a distinct feeling they’ve not only seen into Krupik’s inner world, but had an insight into their own.
Martin Krupik