EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH
JIŘÍ HAUSCHKA
By Anastasia Tsypkina
JIŘÍ HAUSCHKA – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Gold List Special Edition #4 by Art Market Magazine
“I am like a fascinated pilgrim and painting is the best way to show what the world of my pilgrimage looks like. I paint the world which surrounds me and in so doing try to merge the old world
of experiences with a new one.
These days I turn my attention to the topic of roads, highways and forests in contrast to the ever more fragile human existence. For some reason they attract me.
Maybe because I like driving, maybe because they actually are a nuisance for many people, a necessary evil. Or maybe because they remind me of dark lines connecting the colored areas of high-contrast paintings. Highways/ roads/ forest are ever-present and transport an element of freedom and nature”.
– Jiří Hauschka
Jiri Hauschka. I am in love with your brother. Acrylic on Canvas. 200×145 cm. 2015
JIŘÍ HAUSCHKA – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
A.T.: Hello Jiří, It’s a pleasure having an interview with you. I would like to start with your vision of art. How would you describe the main concept that you follow? Has it changed a lot through the years?
J.H.: The word “concept” sounds a bit controversial, I’d rather use the collocation “artist’s life”. My artistic life is focused on feeling myself like a pilgrim discovering the surrounding life. I paint what I see. I’m trying to paint things and the world in my way with no copying. Most of my paintings reflect my life flow, linked to my personal events. You might also call it biographical art. I can be inspired by the movie or the photo and be sure it will be shown soon in the painting. My artistic language has changed a lot because I used to work with black and white liquid forms, fluid lines, which meant for me a special energy you can find in the past or in the future.
I should go there. Acrylic on canvas. 100×150 cm. 2016
A.T.: I’d like to talk for a while about your paintings introduced in the latest NordArt 2018. How many of them were presented and what made you to expose these exact works?
J.H.: Let say, I exhibited two paintings have been made as one piece, I mean as a diptych. This time I did something I’ve never done before, but still using my current motives, like nature, trees. The curators asked me to create 3D painting so I tried to make the surface shaped as moving trees.
That’s why I chose this kind of artwork.
A.T.: The theme that unites all of the Czech work called “At the borders of infinity and future”. Whose idea was it? How did you get it and what it means for you as for the artist?
J.H.: I think this is Lucie Pangrácová’s and Michal Gabriel’s idea. Usually artists use just colors, canvas and nothing else more. For this show we had to create paintings using a new technique that extends the image. The concept of the pavilion means to me just the movement from the classic technics to something more latter-day.
Jiri Hauschka. Waiting. Acrylic On Canvas. 40×60 cm. 2011
A.T.: I know that you were deeply involved in Stuckism movement. Could you please tell our readers what is the point of this art trend and how you got acquainted with that?
J.H.: It happened in 2004 when I wanted to move to London, where I met Charles Thompson – one of the founders of this movement. The Stuckists were fighting against the conceptual art madness, taking it as a joke but seriously as well. Before meeting them, I related my paintings to abstract art and took this conceptual cult of forms as a normal thing.
A.T.: Do you still consider yourself as a Stuckist? If you don’t, so what other manifesto or philosophy you are experiencing nowadays?
J.H.: I think that in my heart, I’m still a Stuckist! I’m not good at philosophy and manifesto so I just follow my believes and intuition; I don’t want to be a soldier of official art. Stuckists believed in painting and so do I!
A.T.: I really like how you use magic realism and a kind of similar symbols that make the audience be both – at present and in detachment? How do you manage to do that? Are any special methods or techniques that make your painting so special?
J.H.: I work now using classic acrylic techniques on canvas in a more realistic style than I used to, while working with abstract and absurd things, before knowing the Stuckists. My works are in the middle of abstract art and realism.
A.T.: My next question is about symbols or images you commonly use in your works, such as trees, forests, roads. Is that a kind of your artistic language you speak with the audience or it’s your way to transform emotions into art?
J.H.: My internal conflict is humanism/nature, etc., currents that are implanted in our minds by getting tons of daily information on the internet. We’re dealing with the world of nature and the human nature being attacked in all spheres of life. Looking at my paintings you can find a few people – just silhouettes, forests and highways. Some of the images represent materialistic stuff created by people in modern society, while the other is a kind of raw fats belonging to nature. These are the symbols of two mixed worlds: the new one and the old one, which still are influenced by each other. I emphasize it by using color tension, contrasts. As for my world, it’s situated somewhere between.
