The first seasonal residential exhibition in Volman's Villa presents the Czech artist of the younger generation, Pavel Dušek, in a new exhibition cycle organized in cooperation with Trafo Gallery. Through his works, the author freely refers to functionalist architecture, where his reliefs respond to the villas of the world-famous architect Le Corbusier, but he is also significantly inspired by the design and colour of the 1970s and 1980s.
In his work, the artist intuitively responds to what the architects Janů and Štursa covertly put in Volman's villa - the atmosphere between functionalism and dream, between geometric logic and surreal landscape. His reliefs, created directly for the villa during a short stay, open a dialogue between architecture and art, which the viewer completes according to his own imagination.
Pavel Dušek combined his painting and sculpting skills into one artistic whole, namely relief. At first he creates painted reliefs from concrete, then he moves on to reliefs modeled in other materials such as ceramics, bronze or dyed acrystal until now he reaches the stage of welded interior cutouts, which evoke an atmosphere of mystery and time travel.
Dusko's spaces, into which we see and enter through sight and touch, but also through the play of light and shadow, evoke a kind of film scene that any observer can already complete according to his personal history, character or mood.
The reliefs for Volman's villa were created during 2025, are inspired by its colour and architecture and want to sensitively evoke the impression that they were an integral part of the interior from the very beginning. In an effort to support Genia loci Pavel Dušek presents a series of works designed to act as an unobtrusive piece of jewellery in the villa.
Pavel Dusěk (*1992) moves between painting, object and installation in his work. In 2012—2018 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under the direction of Michael Rittstein. His works are regularly presented at solo and group exhibitions in Czech and theatre, and in 2021 he won the Critics' Prize for Young Painting. In 2024, he participated in trade fairs in Istanbul, Miami, Hamburg and Vienna. Dusěk is a multimedia artist who is fascinated both in form and content by materials - cement, concrete, metal and acrylic. In his work, he is based on intense physical contact with matter, layering, stringing and reassembling forms. It explores the relationship between the inner space of the church and the outside world — between construction and disintegration, between intuitive gesture and rational composition. Typical of them are the distinctive structures, the rawness of the material and the play with remains, traces and fragments. He also applies his work to outdoor spaces and urban landscapes. He installed his paintings in buildings, for example, in Athens, Paris, London, Benatka and Barcelona.
Trafo Gallery is a private exhibition hall in the industrial premises of Hall 14, the former slaughterhouse of Holešovice Market, which since 2006 represents prominent artists not only from the generation of its founders. Jan Kaláb, Jakub Nepraš, Michal Cimala and Blanka Čermáková were born in the former Vysočany Trafačka, who still form the exhibition programme together today. In collaboration with leading Czech curators (Otto M. Urban, Petr Vaňous, Radek Wohlmuth, Kristýna Jirátová, Tomáš Pospiszyl and others) and Czech and foreign artists, Trafo Gallery prepares six exhibitions a year, for which it publishes non-traditional bilingual narrative publications. The exhibition program focuses on contemporary Czech and international artistic work of the middle generation, focusing on painting, sculpture, intermedia installations, graffiti, photography, drawing and more. In addition to the domestic program, he participates in foreign fairs and occasionally exhibits outside his own premises. The components of the gallery program are regular commented examinations, workshops, lectures, screenings, performances, etc.
