Élan Vital

Élan vital is a double solo exhibition presenting works by Jan Bajtlik and Alexander Skorobogatov. The artists create a dialogue with masterpieces and artistic movements from the western art history tradition, from which they appropriate and revisite aesthetic elements in order to celebrate their joyful, optimistic and harmonic attitude.
 
Jan Bajtlik presents various paintings referring to his earlier fascinations with plants, motifs, signs and their legibility, as well as in his latest series where he transforms scenes from Renaissance masters. This action brings out their tensions and lightining games. At the same time, his depictions of St. George killing the dragon are both a tribute to the old masters and a reference to his own search for representations of man's inner conflict with the monster within himself. As presented in the ancient iconography of tauromachia used by Bajtlik in earlier works, the exploration of the contradictory relationship between the irrational force and the conscious will is also manifested in the series ‘Engines’, which is included in the exhibition. The engine’s complex mechanism, depicted as a still life, impresses the beholder with its organic nature.
 
Alexander Skorobogatov presents paintings and sculptures that burst with vivid colors, arranged in fantastic gardens. They carry ironic and humorous titles, such as Forest Fairy, Your Bird Has Strange Feathers or Eden. His paintings play with seemingly naive representations, evoking a cool mood. Skorobogatov's sculptures of bizarre plants consist of two basic elements: an internal metal structure reminiscent of constructivist traditions, and foliage made of silicone mixed with pigments that introduce an element of painting. In this way, the sculptures become paintings of space.
 
The exhibition is a hymn to life and a journey into a vast and rich territory where form and light speak through centuries.