Jan Valik
About
I approach and consider my paintings as fluid and psychological territories moving between perceptual ambiguities, emotions and evocations of otherness. Held in a strange balance and uncertain of fixed meanings, these semi-open ecosystems are responses to the world in flux of contradictions in effort to reach from subjective towards something universal.
Reliant on intuition, spontaneity and experimentation and equally on chance and control, the dialogue between process and resulting image shifts back and forth from accidental marks to conjured spaces. Floating free-form or morphing into shapes that language can’t fully tackle, washes of colour, impulsive brushstrokes or slowly traced shapes depict and conceal at the same time aiming towards simultaneously familiar and weird, illogical and sublime. I am interested in how the external space affects the internal one and paint from where that intersection is.
Jan Valik, a painter born in Slovakia and based in London, holds his MA in Fine Arts from Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and is currently finishing his postgraduate studies in Painting at the Royal College of Arts in London. Jan was shortlisted for Contemporary British Painting Prize 2021 and more recently for The Morrison and Foerster Art Prize 2023 in London. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions in Canada, Belgium, Austria, Czechia and Japan, as well as in group exhibitions in the UK, across Europe, in China and Japan.
Supported by Rose Finn-Kelcey Bursary & The Vice Chancellor’s Achievement Scholarship.
Solo exhibitions (selected)
2023 Amart Gallery, ‘Small Infinities’, Vienna, AT
2022 L.L.Contemporary, ‘Breakthrough’, Toronto, CA
2022 Husk Gallery, ‘Shifting Places’, Brussels, BE
2021 Amart Gallery, ‘Landscapes’, Vienna, AT
2020 Husk Gallery, ‘Verge’, Brussels, BE
Group exhibitions (selected)
2024 L.L. Contemporary, ‘Both: Inwards and Out There’, Toronto, CA
2024 Mezzanine Gallery at the Royal College of Art, ‘Vedanā’, London, UK
2024 The Bhavan, ‘Transient Traces’, London, UK
2024 Amart Gallery, ‘Abstract on Paper’, Vienna, AT
2023 L.L.Contemporary, ‘Sunshine and Rain’, Toronto, CA
2023 Adah Rose Gallery, ‘Carte Blanche’, Washington D.C., US
2023 Pragovka Gallery, ‘Echo of the Depth in Space’, Prague, CZ
2022 London Paint Club x Koppel Project, ‘Selects pt.2’, London, UK
2022 Studio West Gallery, ‘Now Introducing’, London, UK
2022 London Paint Club x Hoxton253, ‘Select Pt.1’, London, UK
2022 Abstract on Paper II, Amart Gallery, Vienna, AT
2022 Unit 1 Gallery, ‘Contemporary British Painting Prize’, London, UK
2021 Huddersfield Art Gallery, ‘Contemporary British Painting Prize’, Huddersfield, UK
2021 FiveSparks Arts Centre, ‘Mediated Landscapes’, Harvard, US
2021 Husk Gallery, ‘Panta Rhei’, Brussels, BE
2021 Art Exchange Gallery, ‘Of Other Places’,Colchester, UK
2020 Husk Gallery, ‘In Arcadia’, Brussels, BE
Awards and competitions
2023 Shortlist, The Morrison and Foerster Art Prize, London, UK
2022 Shortlist, Now Introducing Prize 2022, London, UK
2021 Shortlist, Contemporary British Painting Prize 2021, London, UK
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