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Jaromír Novotný (born 1974, Český Brod) works with painting in his own very unique way, which does not necessarily involve the classic ‘painting pictures’ techniques. Using traditional and non-traditional materials – whether it is acrylic, graphite, printing ink, paper, board, organza, or canvas, Novotny deconstructs painting, its historic form, and content. He analyzes the basic categories of material and technique, undermining the conventions and consistently “abstracting” the process that allows the painting to come into being. At times he stitches the canvas or organza, not painting it, and treats the painting almost in a sculptural way whereby surface does not always take precedence and all the elements of the work are integral to its viewing – support frame, transparency, and even at times slight tears and openings in the canvas.
Jaromír Novotný studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in the Studio of Drawing under Jitka Svobodová and the Conceptual Tendencies Studio under Miloš Šejn. For over the past ten years his work has moved in the space between the painted image and a reduction to near abstraction – or between the filling in and the taking out. Recent exhibitions include the solo exhibition Other Things Held Constant, at the House of Arts in Brno in 2021; Just a Narrow Range of Possible Things, Axel Vervoordt, Hong Kong; 2020: Slow Gestures, Museum der Wahrnehmung, Graz, AU; 2019: The Gulf Between, Art Centre de Warande in Turnhout, Belgium,, Tangents, Brno House of Arts, Czech Republic, 2017: Intuition, Fortuny Palace, Venice, IT; The Body of a Painting (solo), hunt kastner; 2016: What a Painting Wants (solo), Kargl Box, Vienna, AU; Generosity: The Art of Giving, curated by Adam Budak, Forms of Silence, Covent of La Tourette, France; 2015: Fern Flower, with Michal Budny at PLATO in Ostrava, Backlight (solo), Dům umění (House of Arts) in České Budejovice, Jaromir Novotny and Gizela Mickiewicz, curated by Patrycja Rylko, Gdansk City Gallery, PL. His work can be currently also seen in the exhibition Thinking Through Images, The Visual Events of Miroslav Petříček, curated by Jitka Hlaváčková, at the Prague City Gallery at the Municipal Gallery [4 October 2023 – 7 January 2024] and CO-EXTENSIVE, curated by Filip Šenk, at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague [19 October 2023 – 7 January 2024].