Jan Pištěk Živly / Elements

The publication Živly / Elements offers a cross-section of the work of Jan Pištěk (1961) for the last four years. The painter is a member of the generation that entered the art scene in the mid-eighties and his work has been characterized by a variety of approaches. However, he is mainly a painter of the natural world and for him painting is a way to express his sensual enchantment with the surrounding world. For his painting the tension between realistic representation and the abstract mark of the painter’s brushwork is essential. The cycles Elements, Invisible Life of the Darkness and Industrial Clone paraphrase natural phenomena and the way they are perceived through the human senses and artistic reflection. An important part of the publication is the photographs by Robert Novák which have captured Pištěk’s paintings in terms of both their natural monumental scale and in their fine details.

The book is produced in a bilingual Czech and English edition.