The painting work of Stanislav Diviš (born November 20, 1953, in Kutná Hora) has long been one of the distinct authentic values of the Czech art scene. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague from 1982 to 1985. In 1985, the malice of several regime-aligned professors at the Academy prevented him from continuing his studies. In 1983, he founded the music group Krásné nové stroje (Beautiful New Machines), of which he remains the frontman to this day. He was the initiator of a series of generational exhibitions in unorthodox spaces under the name Konfrontace (Confrontations) and a co-founder of the renowned group Tvrdohlaví (The Stubborn Ones). He has served as a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.
For this exhibition, the author has chosen a collection composed of several series. One of them, Flowers from Paradise, provided the title for the entire exhibition. It is inspired by the radiant stained glass windows of French Gothic cathedrals. The impetus for the creation of the ever-growing Spartakiads series of paintings came from preserved movement diagrams of gymnasts on the floor of the Strahov Stadium for the unrealized 1990 Spartakiad. An exceptionally significant period of early 20th-century Czech fine art inspired the creation of the Shards of Memory – Czech Cubism series. Among the newer, vibrantly developing series is Color Geometry, which reacts to contemporary mostly monochrome drawings and reliefs of geometric abstraction. Stories of Rulers is a statement about the ability of the present to read and artistically interpret the reliefs of Mayan shrines. An extraordinary position is held by Unwanted Touches – Hidden Beauty, the origins of which lie in completely accidental, chaotic marks left on a surface by discarded oil markers. The latest are Empty Spaces, based on purely technical floor plans of specific building complexes, transformed by Stanislav Diviš through the weight of paint, which he works with here as well as a carrier of content.
Curator: Ivan Neumann
