Pool Pompei

Pavel Dušek oscillates between material painting and the object; the reliefs that result are, through their colouring, painting and sculpture at once, and make a space of their own in the field of art. His work conveys a fascination with material as such — he works most often with concrete, but also with bronze, ceramics and acrystal. His thinking about matter is not that of a classical sculptor, though, but rather that of a painter, and the same goes for his thinking about space. The central motif is often architectural compositions assembled from memories, mostly interiors. They come about through a process of intuitive nostalgia; in other words, the artist reconstructs a memory and, by using deformation and geometrisation, offers the viewer a new version of reality. An important part of Pavel's work is movement in public space. He travels with his reliefs and places them around Europe, from Madeira to Athens. The works are street art and vandalism at the same time. The moment when society at large refuses to call this uninvited placing of something on the facades of buildings unwelcome — because of its craft, its beauty and its fragility, of course — is precisely the moment that interests the artist and gives him room to think. /Lucas Glorious/