Patrik Kriššák's new exhibition „Extinction“ in café Radost brings closer the beauty, but also the transience of underwater nature. Kriššák chose the coral reef ecosystem as his main topic. We are currently facing their extinction due to global changes. However, the main message of the paintings is not an activistic threat, but rather an attempt to convey the seriousness of the topic.
"I don't think that what I'm doing is activism. I express myself by my medium - painting, which is, by its very nature, a solitary activity. I'm not even an eco-artist, because I create material things, I use colors and the materials used to create the piece actually come to me as essential as the message itself. Nevertheless, I hope that my paintings carry an ecological message so that people realize what our behavior can cause and what it can cost us,” explains Kriššák, who tried to cope with the ubiquitous climate anxiety when creating his paintings. Naturally, it also affects him as an individual. According to him, everything is related to the general dystopian mood in which we find ourselves as a society. "Slavoj Žižek says that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than a change of the system, and I translate this into art as well. In response to global questions, some artists resort to dystopian adaptations - their work reflects the idea that there is no way back. That's why I decided to try to do it the other way around and take some nice part out of nature and show the problems through positive emotions, " he describes the motivation behind his adaptation of the topic.
In addition, Kriššák's paintings are specific by his original form of painting, the so-called “flašování”, where the paint is applied to the canvas directly from the glass, and not by brush. "The technique was created by chance, I needed to quickly colour in most of the painting and I only had small brushes for details, so I applied the paint to the canvas directly from the container and stuck to it. With a little exaggeration, I thought that I would never paint differently again, but there are lots of limitations. You can't mix colors this way or paint details. It is also quite arduous and the whole procedure is lengthy, so sometimes I can't avoid usingbrushes " he describes his creation technique..
The paintings were created just before the installation in Radost, so visitors of the café will see them first. Patrik Kriššák also had in mind the space of the entrance hall when creating the paintings. "I was thinking about which formats to choose so that it would correspond to the exhibition space. I also work with storytelling within the space, some panels have their opposite side in the cubicles, so I decided to place the darker works there, while in the main area there are more colorful and lighter canvases. But there is no need to look for any sequence or narrative there, it is rather an atlas of corals and it is up to everyone what they will get out of it" he explains the placement of the paintings. The exhibition space of the entrance hall captivated him mainly with its functionalist furniture, but also with the symbiosis of a café, bookstore and art. "It reminds me of the ground floor of the Trade Fair Palace :). I came here last year for the rooftop opening, but I guess the exhibition program was not working yet. I knew that there were art studios in Radost, because I noticed a campaign with an offer of studios, so sometimes I recommend them to someone, but it never crossed my mind that I could have an exhibition here, " he adds.
You can see Patrik Krišák's„Extinction“ exhibition in Radost café until the end of February 2021.
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