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House of Art
TUES–SUN 10:00–18:00

Facing the Wall

1981

object, steel mesh, spray paint, 164 × 95 cm

Adriena Šimotová’s works from the 1980s are most typically associated with paper, a material which she approached from a conceptual perspective; however, she occasionally used other materials. Steel mesh was a relatively unusual choice of material for her, though her handling of the human figure is more typical. The “richer” colours (though they are still pastel shades) are also typical of her work in the 1980s. From the 1970s onwards her focus shifted substantially as she began to explore the human body as a constitutive artistic sign. After taking casts of body parts, Šimotová then applied sculptural modelling; this work is an example of that technique.

ŠIMOTOVÁ ADRIENA

(1924, Praha – 2014, Praha) The painter and sculptor Adriena Šimotová attended the State School of Graphic Arts, Prague (1942–1945) and the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in the studio of Josef Kaplický (1945−1950). She was a member of the UB 12 and G7 groups. Her work was associated with the New Figuration movement. Characteristic subject matter were stories of the human body, her paintings focusing on the intimacy of daily rituals which culminated in the celebratory Make–up (1969) or on the human body in extreme situations, the body that is mortal but also resistant to its physical transience. The need to capture fleeting changes led her to change her artistic medium. She partly abandoned painting techniques in favour of new means of expression, and paper became the medium that she found most congenial, since paper was just as fragile and transient as the human body. Also symbolic were the techniques she used: layering, perforation, crumpling and frottage. Her works are records of moments experienced with symbolic effect. Gradually as colour was abandoned in her sculptural works and drawings and they became apparently simpler, so also the subject matter and mode of expression changed. Everyday banality gave way to more momentous levels of creation in which personal tragedy combines with the capacity for profound experience (Fading Forms, 1997).
oil paint, paper, 55 × 45 cm, purchased in 2021 with funding from the Czech Ministry of Culture
1982

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Wallachian Madonna

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