An artist falls for printer waste and this is the result!
Sometimes one wouldn’t believe the little things that can inspire artists. All that’s needed is to finish stretching the canvases, which leave behind ordinary tubes, and have a print shop on the floor above the studio where they throw them out… and an inspiring idea is born! After half a year of work, the artist has decided to who her world to the world. In the interview, she speaks not only about her work but also about her inner world.
When did you start working on the exhibition?
I have been working on this series since spring, but the idea to organise an exhibition only occurred to me two months ago, when I contacted Elena Jakubovič from Y&T Luxury Property, to ask whether she still has the space, because she had offered it to me in the past. But at the time, I had nothing to exhibit. Now I do, so we transformed the space into a pop-up gallery.
Why the inspiration by tubes?
They sort of started attacking me subconsciously in the studio, where I spend all my time. They stayed there from some canvas stretching and I gradually started collecting them. What’s more, the print shop based upstairs kept throwing them out in the hallway, and I felt bad for them, so I brought them to my studio. Then I started playing with them, painting them, building various still life figures out of them, and decided I would try to paint them. I started having a lot of fun and then got completely obsessed with it.
I noticed that some of the paintings are in cooler colours. Is there any meaning to this?
I’ve been using these colours for some time. They are my favourite colours. Even the curator, who wrote the text for the exhibition, called it the Ira palette.
Have you thought that you’d ever take a different direction as far as colours go, or does it just not work for you?
I can think about it, but I don’t know what the result will be. The entire creation of a painting is an unconscious process. I have to sketch what I am going to pain because the painting is very precise. Everything transforms during the creation of the painting, and some things change even afterwards.
What materials and techniques do you use?
The technique changes. I am gradually trying new techniques. I have now started with spraying paint onto the canvas. I started experimenting with it, because this exhibition is a sort of story about my inner world, about my studio, what I like, what inspires me, because I found the inspiration in the studio itself. I have a concrete floor, which is splattered with paint, so certain parts of the paintings imitate that floor. I have started trying various sprays and I have fun doing it. I never used it before.
You spoke about your inner world. Can I ask what the inner world of Ira Svobodová is like?
It is full of art and especially music, which has been inspiring me at lot recently. I like peace and mu favourite studio rituals. I like white, clean spaces (my entire studio is white) and I put on my favourite, music, which is mainly classical, which accompanies the entire exhibition. I composed a playlist, which I used while painting, and it will be playing throughout the exhibition.
The exhibition is on from 23 November to 12 December 2017, every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission free.
Pop Up Gallery - Myslíkova 3, Prague 1
