Zbyněk Sedlecký

Zbynek Sedlecký, Staff 2, 2008. Photograph by Thierry Bal

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Zbynek Sedlecky (b.1976, Prague) generally uses acrylic colours on canvas for creating his compositions. His gesture is quick and the artist’s brushstrokes rapidly give life to urban-scapes where the human presence is often only evoked. The visual result is that of a sketchbook, an agile collection of transient thoughts. 

Although magnified in scale, his images refuse to freeze the moment, following the flux and course of history. His works have the formal quality of a watercolour rather than retaining the “material and temporal solidity” of a painting on canvas. Transparent and evanescent, his ideas crystallised in a water-diluted form. Massive silhouettes of brutal architectures (a modernist evidence of a Socialist past) witness the transition to the uncertainty of the present and sceptically look at the future. 

The striking contrast between the harshness of the scenery and the gentleness of the palette augments the internal friction that characterises each painting. Suspended amidst disillusion and regret, the artist comments on the role of the individual in a time where no room is left for ideological thinking. 

Zbyněk Sedlecký at Liverpool Biennial 2010

Staff 2, 2008
Acrylic on canvas 200 x 140cm

Offices, 2008
Acrylic on canvas 200 x 140 cm 

Hamburg 1, 2009
Acrylic on canvas 200 x 140 cm 

Vitkovice, 2008
Acrylic on canvas 200 x 140 cm 

Airport, 2010
Acrylic on canvas 200 x 140 cm

All exhibited at 52 Renshaw Street