Patrik entered Daniel Balabán’s painting studio at the University of Ostrava at a time when painting was supposedly experiencing its death. In that atmosphere, however, he managed to find a certain challenge, which he transformed into his own technique grounded in material and process. “Only several years after school did I finally find a relationship to color. That’s when I finally felt I was truly painting,” Patrik recalls.

I’d say that at present the paintings from your Extinction series, in which you reference global warming, are most characteristic of your work. How do viewers experience such a weighty theme?

PATRIK: I feel that people often don’t want to talk about this topic. Buying art tends to be associated with joy and pleasant feelings. And this theme is critical. On the one hand, it has the power to bring viewers back to fundamental questions; on the other, it requires a certain resolve to give those questions attention, which not everyone is willing to do.

At first glance your paintings don’t appear critical, so a viewer may experience only their “fun” visual side… Is it important for you to convey that critical layer?

PATRIK: That’s true. My paintings are deliberately under-narrated—there’s actually nothing critical in the image itself. You can perceive it purely visually, or you can go deeper, read something about it or listen. My intention is to explain the content to people once my work has caught their attention, and to build on that initial positive motivation and excitement.

PATRIK: By nature I’m not an activist; I can’t express myself in an activist way, although I might like to. I’m not used to traveling for inspiration; I draw primarily from online sources, which I consider a credible visual representation. I then reduce them to a symbol.

So instead of a view of the future, you’re rather drawing out fragments of viewers’ own memories?

PATRIK: Probably yes. I’m not trying to represent the current state; I focus more on transformation and our ability to remember environments that no longer exist today. David Attenborough articulates this well—at a certain point in his career he realized that his nature documentaries are a testimony to its disappearance. The realization that the things he saw and experienced we will never see again. And I feel that in the Extinction series I’m doing something similar.

So rather than activism, you’re working with nostalgia?

PATRIK: Nostalgia certainly plays an important role. Maybe I carry this feeling from childhood. Lately I’ve been taking stock of my life—relationships with family and friends, my memories. In short, I’m experiencing that nostalgia. In the “Landheart” series, which I began working on during Covid, for example, I reference memories from my native region. I think everyone knows the feeling that the memory of home tied to one’s childhood place won’t be felt anywhere else; elsewhere there will only be other places we love.

Is painting a kind of therapy for you?

PATRIK: I think it’s a way to open up topics and feelings that are otherwise hard to access.

Your path to painting wasn’t the easiest. What kind of artistic development did you go through before arriving at your own technique?

PATRIK: When I came to Professor Balabán’s studio at the University of Ostrava, there was a strange atmosphere at the school—the medium of painting was in crisis. As if another end of a certain art-historical epoch were arriving and painting were losing its meaning. But we were studying art and wanted to make it. I felt the need to push the traditional medium of painting somewhere through experiments with materials, forms, and space. The American art of the 1960s was an inspiration for me.

Conceptually, even then I was working with a certain nostalgia or idea, and I intensely felt various ethical themes such as industrial meat processing… I was probably dealing with some personal issues, especially an eye injury that happened to me before my studies.

How did your eye injury make its way into your work?

PATRIK: The injury was probably the most authentic thing I was experiencing long-term at that time. After this injury I had no psychological assistance for coping with post-traumatic stress, and it took me a few years to get through it mentally. Naturally, I didn’t orient myself toward introspective probing that would cause inner pain and feelings of inferiority. That’s why I focused more on the external world. Small studies, including a series of dehaired animal hides as a critical response to industrial processing.

I don’t think I could make art centered on my own emotional problems or experiences, but those emotions are present through my optics—through the way I look at themes that go beyond my individuality.

After the injury you now see with only one eye, which must be a major challenge for the creative process as well…

PATRIK: The eye injury happened before I ever felt the ambition to apply to art school. For a long time I was isolated from society because of the injury, and I feel a certain solitude in artistic creation too. You shut yourself in the studio and you’re there alone. Time spent alone with the artwork is very important for an artist, because that’s what helps you form a relationship with the work, reflect on it, and go through the process.

I don’t know if it’s a consequence of the loss of vision, but I also found that I need formal constraints in my work that show me the path. That’s probably where my constant need to experiment comes from. I enjoy creating a vision and then searching for a way to fulfill it.

Your unique painting technique demonstrates this well. You mount the canvas on a rotating stand that you built yourself. In a way it’s quite performative, action-based. How did you arrive at this method?

PATRIK: The need for experimentation has always been present in my work. During my studies I encountered several theoretical points that still resonate with me today—for example Sol LeWitt’s writing on contemporary art, where the sentence “irrational ideas should be followed rationally” caught my attention, as well as the thought that “intuition is just as important as intellect.” Because of work I mostly painted at night—the reality after graduating was much more complicated than I had imagined.

The whole point was that I applied paint impulsively, differently—directly from the bottle onto canvas laid on the floor. That intrigued me because it created a clear chromatic trace, something like Sýkora’s “worms,” but a bit different thanks to the paint. I felt I suddenly saw a way out of the dead end I had been wandering in for some time. I built a rotating frame and began systematically applying paint directly from the bottles onto the canvas horizontally. For me that was a blast! Although I studied painting, I had never had a very developed relationship to color; I worked more conceptually with shades of gray and brown. And suddenly color was the bearer of everything. It may sound strange, but only then did I feel I was truly painting.

So now you no longer think painting is dying?

PATRIK: No—now I can even say that I’m a painter (laughs). At school I always had a tendency to present myself more as an artist, and now finally, when I look around my studio, I feel that painting is my means of expression. For me it’s a kind of personal maturation. Painting is alive!

Besides paint you’re not afraid to apply shimmering glass dust or glitter to your works. What is your relationship to kitsch?

PATRIK: Kitsch is, in my view, fundamental. It’s a powerful expressive tool, and I consciously balance on its edge. Borderline moments simply attract me—perhaps it’s partly a kind of provocation. Sensing the edge correctly, however, isn’t easy, because the more one works with kitsch, the less critical one’s gaze can become. You can keep it in check, for example, through knowledge of art history and deliberate references to it. I mostly use registers of kitsch as a means of pointing to a subject that lies on the opposite, critical side of the spectrum. Through form, I lead the viewer to reflect on serious societal issues, which can resonate well thanks to this contrast.

Many collectors visit your studio over the course of the year. What interests them most about your works?

PATRIK: People come to me who have been following my work for a long time, and then some impulse brings them to the studio. Sometimes it’s just curiosity. They want to see the environment where the works are created, and they’re often surprised by how the works feel in direct contact. The experience of a digital reproduction on the internet is suddenly replaced by a personal experience that isn’t transferable. They perceive substance and scale, material and smell. And then they get another layer in the form of an explanation of the concept and thematic background. They also want to hear my story, the work’s interpretation, the process. There’s a lot to talk about.

I think such encounters are, in a way, revelatory for them. They often resonate with the works—and you can see it. It’s very interesting to listen to their own interpretations. Sometimes they bring a completely new impulse from their own lives, and sometimes they interpret the painting very precisely without any guide to reading it. That fascinates me.

Which direction will you take now? Are further creative challenges ahead?

PATRIK: In recent years I’ve found great fulfillment in working in series, because I can continuously develop a principle. I’ll certainly continue with the long-term “Extinction” series, and at the same time develop the newly started series “La Saveur du Congo,” where I work on the theme of poaching. The disruption of biodiversity goes beyond local impacts. I was inspired by last year’s expedition in Congo, accompanied by Arthur Sniegon, a leading figure of the Save Elephants organization. In a way I’m following up on the critical environmental register. The color palette shifts toward earthier tones, which is a big novelty for me, and I’m really looking forward to it.

As for exhibitions, I’m currently showing together with Johan Pertl until the beginning of September at NOOK Art Studio, where I present the Extinction series, and I also have a solo viewing at The Appartment in Karlín, where you can see older pieces from my practice as well.