Czech artist Joska Skalnik's 'poetism' in blue

By Parvathi Nayar Narayan

JAKARTA (JP): Pinks and blues, but especially blues. Blue of every hue and tone dominates the paintings of Joska Skalnik. Is it a phase, like Picasso's Blue Period? Not quite, for Skalnik claims that the color blue is an obsession, a disease even. Try as he may, he just cannot get away from it.

Joska Skalnik was born in Prague in 1948, graduated in graphics from the School of Applied Art in Prague, and worked for about 25 years as a graphic artist. A current exhibition of his work in Jakarta showcases both his well established graphic work, and his emerging voice as a fine artist. A major retrospective of Skalnik's graphic art work, along with his fine art work is planned in Prague this autumn. After this, he plans to hang up his graphic art gloves and concentrate on fine art.

One of the many reasons for his decision to quit graphic art is that he does not like the increasing dominance of computerization in the field. Skalnik prefers work done by hand, which he regards as real and personal. He sees computer art as androgynous and lacking in character.

Skalnik is inspired by dreams -- not by realistic dream imagery, but by the emotional response to dreaming. Encoded in dreams are the essence of life's experiences. His work, he says, fits more into the Czech School of Poetism, an offshoot of Surrealism. Poetry, literature, theater, music -- all these are sources of inspiration for the artist, and all these are interconnected. From jazz music (which Skalnik loves) he has been inspired by the act of improvisation, an essential element of abstract art.

One of the really beautiful graphic art works on show is the cover of Jazz magazine, a 1985 issue devoted to tribal music. Against the empty lines of a music sheet, on one side he has placed twigs and stones -- the elements of composition -- which merge on the facing page into a dynamic compositional whole.

The most interesting graphic art pieces are the ones he has done for jazz music. This also includes an LP cover for Jazz Q, and a Jazz Quartet poster. In both he uses assemblages of objects, like isolated black and white piano keys and parts of musical instruments to create the main visual. Work done for theater comprises of posters, playbills and programs. The humor of the man shows through in some -- a poster for experimental theater based on Shakespearean work that shows a jester carrying a bag of wisdom.

Joska Skalnik is emphatic about being a non-political painter, for politics is all about compromise, and does not mix with pure creativity. However, a strong believer in the importance of individualistic expression, he came up against and rejected the totalitarian Communist dictatorship then in power in Czechoslovakia. He was part of a generation that expressed this opposition via the medium of jazz, seen as a product of the "decadent West" by the government. He was one of the founders of an active organization, the Jazz Section, and was eventually imprisoned for his beliefs. He is a good friend of Vaclav Havel, the dramatist, who, after the Velvet Revolution, was elected President of the Czech Republic.

Joska Skalnik the artist is essentially a loner. His belief in free artistic expression got him involved with organizing events for the Jazz Section. He has worked with President Havel's cultural committee and has been involved in collective art enterprises during his work with theater and music companies. He admires the collaborative spirit of the latter, but that's not where he wants to be. He values his solitude, and his present freedom to create as an artist, without the encumbrances and needs of organization.

Women are another important source of inspiration for Skalnik, and he says that many of his paintings have erotic overtones. Portrait of Unknown Woman 1-7 is a series done in collage. Almost self consciously blue, the Unknown Women series uses beautiful photographs of women from magazines for their main image, along with feathers, torn paper, pictures of blue objects, like blue roses, butterflies, water drops. The images are visually pretty, but tend to stop with this surface prettiness without exploring, say, an inner sensuality.

Collage elements are seen in his abstract paintings as well, such as Dreaming in the Studio. Collage is a dominant technique of the art work on show, but is really only a small part of Skalnik's ouevre. Essentially, it is abstraction and its interpretative nature that the artist is drawn to.

Contrary to the popular notion of abstraction being incomprehensible to the layman, Skalnik believes that it is the element of abstraction that opens the door to let people into his work. Even in a painting with realistic and abstract imagery, he feels that it is the edge of abstraction that allows the viewer to interpret his work.

Skalnik has been experimenting with lithography recently. In the case of Time Circulation, both the original painting in acrylics and a lithograph he made based on it are exhibited. Dizzying Moment 1 - 4 are a series of lithographs, where the artist has used the curved and spiral forms of shells juxtaposed with linear geometric forms, to create an interesting visual imagery that exists within an interesting space. They are in the artist's favorite colors, turquoise, cobalt and large swathes of salmon pink. Other distinctive elements of the artist's style are visible too -- textures derived from collage and torn paper, from paint in the form of heavy blobs or thick brush strokes, the enlargement of print dots and air brushed areas.

The work on view is not for sale. So far, the artist says, he has never sold his work, only given them away to friends who have really wanted them. Currently he is engaged in resurrecting the ideas of Poetism in abstract form. He is looking forward to the next phase in his life that he intends to devote to the pursuit of fine art. He hopes the three months spent in Southeast Asia will prove to be a source of inspiration.

" I do not know whether art presents me with more answers or more questions," says Skalnik. "Nonetheless, I feel it important -- just as in the life - not to shut the door in the face of any of art's questions or of any of its answers."

The exhibition of Joska Skalnik's work is on at the Main Lobby of the World Trade Center, Jl. Jend. Sudirman No. 29-31, until April 18. It is being held under the auspices of the minister of culture of the Czech Republic, Pavel Tigrid. Admission is free.