Andrej Dúbravský

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Dittrich & Schlechtriem are pleased to present our fifth solo show with Andrej Dúbravský titled Anxiety of Subimago.

Dúbravský presents an empathetic yet critical study of the environment and its progressing devastation. The Anxiety of Subimago points to an unresolved tension between humankind and nature, resulting in frustrating restlessness akin to an adolescent subimago state—a winged preadult life stage of the delicate-looking mayfly. Over a layered wall, an installation of molted studio canvases, Dúbravský presents a series of new large-format acrylic paintings on canvas with sweaty renderings of huddled running bodies paired with deserted landscapes and small-format portraits of pollinating bees and insects in varying states of metamorphosis.

"(Sex and skincare are two of the artist’s many hobbies outside of art; and his paintings have the same glow you might have after a hydra facial combined with a three-day celery-juice fast.) In his series “Runners,” which depicts a group of men who are running next to each other and have mythical horns attached to their heads, Dúbravský has continuously been referencing the same gay porn video. The paintings are alienated screenshots from an anniversary video of a gay porn company in which thirty porn actors are running on the beach. Three years ago, he had stumbled upon the film and has since chopped it up in small frames, which reappear in the form of paintings—sometimes of majestic size, “Wet sand”, for example, measures nearly three meters in height. This monumentality intertwined with the imagery of nude men, which appear more like souls who jumped out of a fairytale your grandmother read to you as a child—uncertain if they are demonic or angelic—empsizes the various forms of desire and sexual potency inherent to Dúbravský’s paintings, without surrendering to merely sex-driven, animalistic appetites. It is not about sex, and yet it is. It is the same dichotomy as between beauty and darkness and romanticism and the perverse. Dúbravský hybridizes these chasms through acrylicized smoke, which wafts across both utopian and dystopian gardens."

—Claire Koron Elat, The Age of Anxiety

At his most painterly, his outlines bleed into body, and the borders between expression and accident blur. Some of his compositions teeter right on the precipice of falling apart, held together ‘just so’ by only the most lightly worn technique, and an eye that knows an awful lot about the historical canon. The latter has seen enough to know that the nature of the pictorial imaginary is always in flux. In their many-coloured coolness, Dúbravský’s figures are contemporary subjects.

—Nadim Samman, Andrej Dúbravský, Naturist

*****

Dittrich & Schlechtriem freuen sich, Andrej Dúbravskýs fünfte Einzelausstellung in der Galerie anzukündigen.

Dúbravský stellt eine einfühlsame und zugleich kritische Untersuchung der Umwelt und ihrer voranschreitenden Zerstörung vor. Die Angst der Eintagsfliege verweist auf eine ungelöste Spannung zwischen Mensch und Natur; die daraus resultierende frustrierende Ruhelosigkeit ähnelt dem Zustand einer heranwachsenden Subimago – der geflügelten präadulten Phase der grazilen Eintagsfliege. Auf einer in mehreren Lagen mit verworfenen Leinwänden aus dem Atelier behängten Wand zeigt Dúbravský eine neue Reihe großformatiger Bilder in Acryl auf Leinwand mit verschwitzten Darstellungen von dicht aneinandergedrängten Läuferkörpern, denen menschenleere Landschaften gegenüberstehen, sowie kleinformatige Porträts von Blüten bestäubenden Bienen und Insekten in verschiedenen Stadien der Metamorphose.