Jiljí Sedláček (1956-2017)

AWAKENING

probably around 1968–1975
Oil on canvas, 120×100 cm (150×130 cm), marked on the reverse including the artist`s inscription of the title. Framed in the artist`s beech frame. A dynamic composition built on the contrast of black and white areas with accents of ochre, blue, and orange. The artist works with layering of planes and structures that evoke a sense of depth and space, which is characteristic of his work. The reduced colourism, monumental composition, and connection of the geometric sign with a metaphorical structure correspond to Sedláček`s work from the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, or from the first half of the 1970s. In this period, the line of so-called structural and meditative abstraction was gaining ground in Czech art, reacting to the Informel of the 1960s but moving toward greater inner discipline, symbolism and existential content. Sedláček`s Awakening can be understood as a representative example of this tendency – painting that is not a description of reality but an image of an inner state and a process of transformation, probably reflecting the reformist social processes of the late 1960s. Condition A.