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until 17.04. | #2880ARTatBerlin | hilleckes probst galerie presents from 7th November 2020 the solo show COLOR FRENZY with works by the artist Eliška Bartek.
“My life is art. Whether it is the story of my life, whether it is me. Whether it is the food or the cooking. Whether it’s celebrating. Whether it is painting. Everything around me is art and my art.”
– Eliška Bartek –
Eliška Bartek, 2 Novembre 2016 || Eliška Bartek, 22 Dicembre 2017
Eliška is the Czech version of the first name Elisabeth, and it means My God is fullness. If one takes a look at Eliška Bartek’s extensive oeuvre, which she has created over the years, it seems as if she absolutely wants to match this meaning of her first name. The quote from the artist at the beginning of this article clearly reflects this
With a verve that is second to none, she wastes herself on her works. It does not matter in which medium she is working at the moment. With Eliška, everything happens in a frenzy of lust for life. She works in a state of intoxication and obsession. This is reflected in the sensory impressions she inscribes in her works, be it photography, cliché verre, oil on canvas, ink on paper or even performances. As in the case of her jubilee exhibition on the occasion of her 70th birthday in the hilleckes probst galerie, she paints with watercolour, making it shine like hardly anyone else.
She does not tolerate dilution. Eliška Bartek condenses and interlaces colour until it glows. She draws from the full and confronts us with the colourfulness of her watercolours. However, anyone who thinks they see harmless landscape paintings in her works is misguided, for the seemingly plump life in her works harbours stumbling blocks, as the cycle Il mio piccolo paradiso, which she painted in corona isolation in her house in Ticino, reveals. These paintings also show off their brilliant colours, but in reality they numb the sorrow of the severe loss of freedom caused by Corona and are intended to keep the feeling of involuntary loneliness at bay.
Eliška Bartek, 27 Dicembre 2016 || Eliška Bartek, 23 Novembre 2017
The Diario di Maggia cycle is accompanied by similar emotions of powerlessness. Forces of nature have always been a source of fascination, but also a threat to man, as well as man’s desire to deal with them, either by fighting them or by accepting them. Eliška Bartek chooses the latter path and, together with the border collie bitch Maila, hikes the valleys around the Maggia River in Ticino day after day. What she encounters is nature in all its ferocity: no rain but downpours, no snow but masses of snow, no gentle warmth but heat.
This sensation culminates in her painted diary pages.
Almost aggressively painted aggregate states of air, water, earth and sun, no classicistic, impressionistic landscape paintings, but powerful outbursts of an artist who has always accepted and continues to accept life with all its emotions and challenges.
Bartek translates some of the watercolours shown here onto canvas. Translation is the expression she consciously chooses for them. She translates her motifs into another language, as she says, which gives the subject another impulse. The canvas works will be shown in the second room of the hilleckes probst galerie.
Eliška Bartek, paradiso IV || Eliška Bartek, paradiso V
Eliška sees opulence and abundance in everything that surrounds her, seldom the lack. And when it does, this too is addressed in her works with the full use of her palette. Eliška Bartek confronts melancholy emotions, as in the watercolours currently on show, by pouring her own cornucopia of her own available cornucopia over them.
Eliška Bartek, 10 Giugno 2018
The hilleckes probst galerie congratulates her artist from the bottom of its heart. Continue to live up to your name, dear Elli! É una festa la vita!
Eliška Bartek lives in Ticino (Switzerland) and in Berlin. In 1972 she fled from the former Czechoslovakia to the Federal Republic of Germany, later studying at the Hochschule der Künste in Zurich. Eliška Bartek became known for her abstract painting, photograms and photography, which are concerned with the medium of painting.
Exhibition period: Saturday, 7 November – Saturday, 16 January 2020 – extended until Saturday, 17. April 2021
To the Gallery
Exhibition Eliška Bartek – hilleckes probst galerie | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
