Press - Jaroslav Valečka – český malíř

Jaroslav Valečka’s (1972) paintings seem at a first glance very quietly moody, yet he sais that they portray places he spends time at mixed with his own intense vision of the places he experiences.

The Lusatian Mountains know for its vast forests, deserted picturesque villages have deeply influenced Valečka’s artworks. He graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and Prague is also his place of residence. However, he spent a significant part of his life in the country, namely in Northern Bohemia. His bond with the dark romance of Northern Bohemia can clearly be identified in the themes of his work and leaves visible marks on the character of his artistic personality.

Valečka has never been, nor ever aspires to be an ambitious leader of artistic avant-garde. In fact, the power of his paintings rests in a particular intimacy of his work and also in an exceptionally balanced quality of his artistic production.

This monographic publication offers a representative and comprehensive look at Jaroslav Valečka’s work from the years 2010-2015. It presents an artist who has established himself as a distinctive member of the middle generation of artists, as someone who draws on the long tradition of Czech landscape painting and symbolist imagination. Besides his typical enchanted landscapes with distant horizons and magical lighting, the book also explores the hidden, inner sources of his work, revealing the influences of the landscape of his childhood, the darkly melancholy environment of the Lusatian Mountains and the “chilling” stories of their inhabitants.

The introductory essay was penned by renowned British art theorist and curator Edward Lucie-Smith, who has written more than a hundred publications in the fields of art history and poetry. His best-known book, Art Today (1995), remains an indispensable guide to contemporary international art. Other informed studies on Valečka’s work were written by art historians Martina Vítková and Rea Michalová and curator Veronika Marešová.

Paintings in print quality (300dpi) to download:

Jaroslav Valečka - portrait