Kateřina Štenclová
Enchanted by the emanations of colours, Kateřina explores in her work the limits of freedom, which is manifested by free improvisations on a given theme, a creative process very similar to that of jazz music. Inspired by the potential of places and instant sensations, she transfers these themes-impulses both onto the canvas and the underlying polythene, using the technique of variation and painting with dance-like brush strokes, without restricting them to the format designated by the canvas space. Multiple and layered footprints of these unbound and ever expanding gestures give rise to an innovating technique based on intuitive bodily movements.
The painter Kateřina Štenclová (*1959) belongs to one of the few Czech painters who is systematically and nearly exclusively committed to abstract painting. She took part in many international symposiums and was awarded the « Créateur d’aujourd’hui » price of Fédération Nationale de la Culture Française. She also attended many important exhibitions (for example Perfect Tense, Painting today, Jízdárna Pražského hradu, 2003-4 ; Contemporary Czech painting, NTK gallery, Prague, 2012) and presented her works on her own: «Limit of the event», National Gallery, Veletržni Palác, Prague, 1999; «Selected Affinities», Czech Center, New-York, 2001; «I paint, therefor I am», French Institute, Prague, 2015. Her main expressive tools are plain colours, the relationship between geometrical and organic surfaces, gesture, the painting support. Her paintings have no symbolic or narrative content, they are dominated by structures of expressive colours, while an important rôle is being played by the gesture and an actual connection to lyrical abstraction.
Štenclová is part of the generation of artists of whom the group Tvrdohlaví made the biggest name for themselves. She exhibited with some of them at semi-official exhibitions (The Past and Future at the Vinohradská tržnice pavillion). Not only does she differ in gender from the all-male Tvrdohlaví group, but her work is, above all, different in that it is not the Czech variety of postmodernism. Her work can be classified as modernist painting of the second half of the twentieth century, and she continues to develop her ideas. Following her expressive beginnings from the end of the 1980s in which she sought a way to transfer her emotions to the canvas using abstract splashes of colour, her paintings became more composed. The painting gesture lost its drawing character and, from the early 1990s, she worked predominantly with large colour areas of pure colours, which she sometimes creates from powdered pigments. The ensuing coloured area is of a unique “dry” and at the same time gently glazed character. Her paintings from the 1990s do not work with spatial illusion; the objectivity of the hanging picture is emphasised in them. Her pictures also do not have a symbolic agenda or narrative content, which from the beginning hindered their comprehension and acceptance by the Czech art community and criticism. Štenclová’s breakthrough was in 1994 with her exhibition at the Nová síň gallery. She presented here a series of canvases, each of which had only two or three parallel streaks of paint. The pictures were installed in irregular order and together formed a single painting installation that reacted to and utilised the architecture of the exhibition space. Her experimentation with the composition of several paintings into a single pictorial whole reached its pinnacle in the series The Edge of the Event I and II (1998-1999) that gained considerable response in the international press (Artforum, Art in America). At the dawn of the new millennium Štenclová abandoned austere geometry and began to work with the relationship of the circular painting gesture and right angle format of the paint pad, and also with the relationship of various layers of painting to each other. Since 2005 she has used a broader and more flexible brush that emphasised in her new work the calligraphy character of the traces of paint. This technique led to the creation of a series of canvases with random splashes of colour on polythene and which also cover the floor in her studio. (Tomáš Poszpiszyl)
Kateřina Štenclová’s Portfolio in Black 2016-2017
Kateřina Štenclová’s Portfolio 2017-2018
Studies
1982-88 • Academy of Arts in Prague, Czech Republic
Solo Exhibitions
2017 • Light of color II., Gallery of Modern Art Roudnice nad Labem, Czech Republic
2016 • Recycle II., Gallery Ve Věži, Planá u Mariánských Lázní, Czech Republic
2015 • Je peins donc je suis, French institut, Prague, Czech Republic
2014 • Duende, Gallery Via Art, Prague, Czech Republic
2013 • Continuo, Václav Havel Library, Prague, Czech Republic
2013 • Kateřina Štenclová, Gallery Caesar , Olomouc, Czech Republic
2013 • Continuo, Gallery NoD, Prague, Czech Republic
2011 • Recycle, Gallery Navrátil, Prague, Czech Republic
2011 • Pictures, Gallery Aspekt, Prague, Czech Republic
2010 • To the Edge and Beyond, Municipal gallery of Pilsen, Czech Republic
2009 • Pictures, Czech cultural center Sofia, Bulgaria
2009 • Photodetails, Theatre Na Dobešce, Prague 4, Czech Republic
2008 • Painting as an Image for a Painting II, Orco, Prague, Czech Republic
2008 • Painting as an Image for a Painting, XXL Gallery, Louny, Czech Republic
2007 • Modrotikály, Gallery Via Art, Prague, Czech Republic
2006 • Pictures Gallery Sokolská 26, Ostrava, Czech Republic
2004 • 3. Exhibition From the Cycle Prague, Vienna, Austria
2004 • Gallery Navrátil, with Johann Julian Taup, Prague, Czech Republic
2004 • Dimension of Opportunity, Galerie Bayer&Bayer, Prague, Czech Republic
2003 • About colour, Gallery Goller, Selb, Germany
2003 • Skoromonochromy II Gallery Klokočná, Mnichovice, Czech Republic
2003 • Folding Structures, together with M. Škoda, Czech Centre, London, UK
2003 • Skoromonochromy, Galerie Navrátil, Prague, Czech Republic
2003 • Fotoobrazy, Galerie Litera, Prague, Czech Republic
2003 • Selected Affinities, together with M. Škoda, Czech Centre, New York, USA
2003 • Stereotace, Dům umění, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
1999 • Hranice události, National Gallery in Prague, Veletržní palác, Prague
1998 • Pictures, Dům umění, Brno, Czech Republic
1998 • Different gravitation, together with J. Plieštik, Galerie Meacenas, Pilsen, Czech Republic
1997 • Honour to Pešánek, together with P. Trnla, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
1994 • Light of Colour, Nová síň Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
1994 • Balance of Diffence, together with E. Bornová, Radost Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
1993 • Harmony of Colour, Church of St. Laurence, Prague, Czech Republic
1992 • Circonstances, Kulturzentrum Scuol, Switzerland
1991 • Traces of Colours, Gallery of Youth, Prague, Czech Republic
1991 • Malerei | Painting, Galerie Artiforum, Gottingen, Germany
1991 • Peintures, Galerie Municipal, Cognac, France
1991 • together with S. Klimeš, Galerie B. Reita, Louny, Czech Republic
1990 • together with E. Bornová, KS Blatiny, Prague, Czech Republic
1990 • Opatov Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
1990 • Na Bidýlku Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic
Group Exhibitions
2016 • Frauen power in der moderner Kunst | Women’s Power in Modern Art, Rathaus-Gallery, Konstanz, Germany
2016 • Memento Tiziani, Museum of Art Olomouc, Gallery Orlovna Kroměříž, Czech Republic
2016 • Strom- Pocta Jindřichu Průchovi | A Tree – Homage to Jindřich Průcha, Slovak Museum in Uherské Hradiště, Czech Republic
2015 • Czech this Art, Royal Ahrend, 17 Charterhouse Buildings, London, UK
2015 • I exist, Gallery 35M2, Prague, Czech Republic
2015 • Art Safari 30 de luxe, studio Bubec, Prague, Czech Republic
2015 • Art Safari 30 de luxe, DEPO, Pilsen, Czech Republic
2014 • Strom – Pocta Jindřichu Průchovi | A Tree – Homage to Jindřich Průcha, Galerie Caesar, Olomouc
2012 • Contemporary Czech Painting, Gallery NTK, Prague, Czech Republic
2011 • Gallery Litera 1991-2011, Gallery Litera, Prague, Czech Republic
2010 • Enamel Art, Ministery of Culture, Nosticův palác, Prague, Czech Republic
2009 • Smalt Art, Prokešovo nám., Ostrava, Czech Republic
2009 • Requisted, exhibition of Czech painting, Wroclav, Poland
2008 • Color fields, Galery Califia, Horažďovice castle, Czech Republic
2008 • Aeronale, Airport Prague, Czech Republic
2005 • Zlínský salon, Zlín, Czech Republic
2005 • Art Safari 9, Sculpture studio Bubec, Prague 5, Czech Republic
2004 • Perfect Tense (Painting today) Prague Castle Riding Hall, Prague, Czech Republic
2003 • New end of painting, Ján Koniarek Gallery, Trnava, Slovakia
2003 • Ejhle světlo | Behold the Light, Místodržitelsky palác, Brno, Czech Republic
2002-3 • Typical picture, Czech Painting at the Beginning 21. Century, Mánes, Prague, Czech Republic
2002 • Contemporary aquarelle, Navrátil Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
2002 • Contemporary aquarelle, Regional Gallery, Liberec, Czech Republic
2002 • Monochromie, Czech Museum of Visual Arts, Prague, Czech Republic
2002 • Colour and Geometry, Oblastní galerie Blansko, Czech Republic
2002 • New End of Painting, Trnava, Slovakia
2001 • Klub konkrétistů Pražská sekce, Universita Palackého, Olomouc, Czech Republic
2001 • Klub konkrétistů, Dům umění, Opava, Czech Republic
2000 • Concretists from Prague, Stockholm, Sweden
2000 • Městské divadlo, Kolín, Czech Republic
1998-9 • Klub konkrétistů, Jihočeská galerie, Hluboká nad Vltavou, Czech Republic
1996 • Villa, Richter’s villa of Prague Castle, Prague, Czech Republic
1996 • Jeunne peinture, Paris, France
1995 • Zlínský salón, Zlín, Czech Republic
1993 • Landscape in the Contenporain Arts, Dům U kamenného zvonu, Prague, Czech Republic
1993 • Kriterion, Mánes, Prague, Czech Republic
1991 • Galerie der Stadt Horn, Austria
1990 • Symposium Pescantina, Italy
1990 • The Culture Center of CSFR, Budapest, Hungary
1990 • Les artistes a Ia Bastille, Paris, France
1990 • Czech arts, Bergen op Zoom, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
1989 • Young in the fight, Holešovická tržnice, Prague, Czech Republic
1989 • MPast and futures, Vinohradská tržnice, Prague, Czech Republic
1989 • Objects, Statues and Instalations, Technical Museum, Prague, Czech Republic
1988 • First Biennale of Universities of Fine Art, Toulouse, France
1988 • Symposium “Symposium of Experimental Art “, Studio PT, Nové Zámky, Slovakia
1984-7 • Confrontation
Grants and Symposia
2012 • III. International art festival Qiz Qalasi – Maden Tower 2012, Baku, Azerbaijan
2009 • Enamel Art Vítkovice 2009, Ostrava, Czech Republic
2005 • Art Bubec, Prague 5 Řeporyje, Czech Republic
2004 • Emaar International Art Symposium Dubai, United Arab Emirates
1992 • Program Artest, Kulturzentrum Scuol, Stiftung, BINZ 39, Switzerland
1990 • International symposium, Horn, Austria Aulum, Denmark International symposium, Pescantina, Italy
Awards
2003 • Appointed as an independent expert in visual arts for evaluation of projects submitted in 2003 as part of the European program Culture 2000, EU-European Commission Directorate-General for Education and Culture
1996 • “Createur d’aujourd’hui” by Federation National de la Culture Francais decouvertes et selections du monde des arts plastiques