Both artists, Pavla Aubrechtová and Vladimír Gebauer, belong to the generation arriving on the scene in the oppressive atmosphere of the mid-1970s, when freedom of speech was limited in all artistic fields. The creative output of these two artists was only known within the narrow circle of their friends. It continues to explore the experimental trends of the 1960s. Both their styles are clearly perceptible, for each of them characteristic. The exhibition in the Montanelli Museum offers an entirely new and exceptional glimpse at the life and work of both these authors.
For over 40 years of their life together each of them has preserved their own unique style, their own approach to their work, their own sense of fantasy and, above all, their own identity. With both of them time has enviably stood still – or are they living outside time?
The exhibited works are presented in this sensitive installation both in the context with the primary creations of Aubrechtová and Gebauer but also as an encounter with the works of the Czech artist Radek Kratina, with whom both artists maintained a friendly, wholehearted relationship. The artistic experience of this exhibition contains no bombastic breast-beating, but on the contrary, only modesty, tenderness and many years of creative professionalism.
Pavla Aubrechtová as a student of Professor František Muzika initially occupied herself with soft pencil illustrations and since the beginning of the 1970s with graphic art. Nature was almost always the source of her inspiration. In her early creations during the 1970s and 1980s, she experimented with a variety of technical procedures. These were pen-and-ink drawings, the use of wax emulsion, penetrating and touching different areas, imprints of coloured spikes, nails, collages, pasting, staining.
She produces a variety of patterns, squares, colourfully painted aquarelles, pastels and monochrome reliefs, composite drawings, lyrical abstractions. „Little boxes“ are being created, assemblages, compositions, test tubes with cotton threads. Aubrechtová continues in the experimental ways of the 1960s.
Her strong ties with poetry and nature is a constant theme. Pavla is also fascinated by old Japanese poetry and calligraphy. Chance is often the inspiration of a different creative start, coincidence often leads this artist to a conceptual interpretation in her own style. Chance and coincidence can also make Pavla visible and often appearing in various guises.
Love of nature is the common factor for Pavla, as well as Vladimír Gebauer, who initially sets out in his creative expression in the form of drawings. Nature is his constant inspiration and ought to remain with him all his life. When Vladimír changes his style from drawing to assemblage, it is again fragments from nature which he uses. Wood, stones, sand, and also records of human stories in combination with paper.
Mysterious pictures and assemblages bear witness to permanent impressions and recollections from imaginary worlds of flora, mainly of forests. On other occasions these may be landscapes where sand, wood and clay, mixed with coloured oils, are more like perceptions incorporated into abstract expressions.
Vladimír´s relationship with poetry points to the delicacy of his personality, creatively illustrated by a dynamic and naturalistic style. Drawings from his early work should reveal his highly sensitive character, his often instinctive perception of applied injustice and his unequivocal opinion on human moral value.
Thus the circle closes and by carefully looking at the work of both artists, we may all of a sudden possibly comprehend their desire to become and to remain observers of our modern, fast-moving life.
