This one’s for all our readers who woke up full of joie de vivre this morning. A spring in the step, a song on the lips, and a disposition so sunny it’s melting the polar ice caps. Well cool your jets there Smiley Cyrus, for as Czech artist Hynek Martinec reminds us with his latest collection, Every Minute You Are Closer to Death. He makes a valid point, but still. Bit of a bummer.
Martinec’s new project marks a departure from the critically-acclaimed hyper-realistic portraits of his partner Zuzana. These large-scale monochrome works are a modern interpretation of both devotional pictures, which depict a figure of worship, and vanitas, which were popular still life compositions in the 16th and 17th centuries and showed earthly possessions – and life itself – as trivial and impermanent. Traditional symbols of mortality such as skulls, candles and empty bottles are joined by modern references to work by Hirst, in which his diamond skull is displayed on modern technology. Billowing cloud-like forms are actually shaving foam, a substance which has a solid look but in reality is fluid and quickly disappears. The series is on show now at Parafin, London, running until 11 October.
Hynek Martinec
Experience of Being Alive, 2014
Oil on canvas, 160 × 260 cm
Hynek Martinec
33 Years of Armageddon, 2013
Acrylic on canvas, 224 × 184 cm
Hynek Martinec
You Will Become As My God, 2013
Acrylic on canvas, 184 × 244 cm
Hynek Martinec
Quo Vadis, John?, 2013
Oil on canvas, 50 × 65 cm
Hynek Martinec
The Light is in the Next Painting II, 2014
Oil on canvas, 50 × 50 cm
© Hynek Martinec 2014. Courtesy Parafin, London
