What immediately draws the attention in his work is his incredible inventiveness, corresponding in a way to his thrilling life, rich in travelling, motivated by his studios, one in Vich, the other one in Berne, and by his numerous exhibitions through Europe.
The subjects are swarming in his head. Without cease plunged into the actuality, accompanied by his inseparable camera, the artist is catching images with an insatiable curiosity. Everything seems to be of interest to him. With an astonishing capacity to associate the most various themes and events, which happened generally at different times and moments, he is integrating the whole with poetry, humour, irony or philosophy, in one and only painting. This is what characterizes specifically his gumprints.
Each work is like a blow given with the fist, a sensation of dizziness; it questions, bewilders the spectator, convinced to have identified a spot, an action or an event, but he is right away mislead, other juxtaposed elements appearing, blowing away the hoped explanation.
This type of work is the result of a complex process. A picture, reduced with the computer in a black and white composition, is then covered with gum-arabic, in order that the black opens to colour. Then, carefully washed with water, it is ready to receive one or many coats of colour applied with a roller. In this way metamorphosed, the picture is put under press and printed on canvas or paper. Sometimes, numerous pictures get along on the same support, creating at the end a very complex work.
Petr Beranek is also an enterprising painter. His paintings are diametrically opposed to the gumprints. The line or the trace is essential. It takes life in the spirit of the artist, long before putting down the colours. He tracks it, follows its meanders or its ruptures in his mind, to tempt to catch what it is going to express. It is only at this moment that the work can begin and that the artist is giving all his energy. Colour fields, superimpositions, drops, spontaneity, traces of lead pencil, the paintings irradiate a great vitality. An exhibition to be seen absolutely, in which talent, audacity and originality are at the rendezvous.
Petr Beranek, born in Prague in 1967, was raised close to Basle. He lives and works in Vich and Bern. Studies at the Visual Art School of Münchenstein near Basle (1991-2000). Numerous exhibitions in Switzerland and in Europe, individually or in group. Teaches at the Fayum International Winter Art Academy in Egypt, at the private school of Netzwerk Malerei in Münchenstein and in his studio in Vich, where he works also as a stained glass artist.
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