Ladislav Černý

Painter | Sculptor | Restorer

About

I can't think of anything. I notice something.

Alfred Hrdlicka, Austrian sculptor, draughtsman, painter, graphic artist, chess player and writer.

Inspired by Hrdlicka's quotation, Černý observes his surroundings with a keen eye. In doing so, he often notices something, and as a reflection on it, also unsurprisingly, many things.

His powerful visual language is based on a clear, dramatic colour composition. Large formats are in the foreground, because they communicate his central themes (world-weariness mixed with a vehement determination) with great dynamism and strength. Here love meets suffering and pain, sexuality meets morality and permissiveness, closeness meets distance. In the sculptural work, Černý plays with the resistance and malleability, the warmth and coldness of the materials used. Behind all the monumentality and expressive directness, however, one always senses the artist's liveliness and sensitivity. The monumental, strong bronze, steel and wood sculptures appeal to several senses through their very special haptics. Every touch becomes a sensual pleasure, materially and symbolically.

 

SNAPSHOTS OF DAILY LIFE | MICRO STORIES

Since the beginning, Černý has developed his artistic programme very consciously. One can sense his urge for independence, for individual thinking and reflection, but also for meditation. This symbiosis inevitably requires a continuous further development, which can be felt in his compositions, motifs and content. One finds abstract, figurative and even readymades.

With the micro-stories, he shares his very personal fate with the audience and lets them participate in his moments of happiness and drama in equal measure. His archetypes are always natural and human. He tells overwhelming stories of "normal" people in the normal, hectic daily routine, with a meditative component for personal reflection. At the same time, he tries to avoid any paradigm.

Černý convinces with his strong personality, his artistic signature, his professionalism. His significant, comprehensive oeuvre, which manifests itself equally in painting and sculpture, lives from the tension-filled duality between monumentality and expressive directness with simultaneous sensitivity and vulnerability.

In this way, Černý transports us into a meditative, sensual space.

Ladislav Černý was born in Bratislava in 1965 and studied at the School of applied arts (photography and commercial graphics), the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden (Diploma in Restoration | Prof. Dr. Ingo Sandner | 1991) and in parallel with Prof. Hort Jokusch, Prof. Friderun Bonzin and Prof. Günter Jakob (painting and sculpture).

Since 1999 solo and group exhibitions in Slovakia, Austria, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. Černý is a member of three artist associations in his home country: the Association of Slovak artists, the Slovak Art Association and the Society of Free Artists.

Numerous prestigious restoration activities for renowned institutions and artists, including Hermann Nitsch.

The artist lives and works in Ivanka pri Dunaji near Bratislava and in Vienna.

Ladislav Černý

Painter | Sculptor | Restorer

Ladislav Černý

Painter | Sculptor | Restorer