Immersion
Martin Krajc’s second solo exhibition in Slovakia focuses on his most recent paintings from 2019 to 2021, except for the one hanging above the entrance ramp, dating to 2013.
The exhibition presents Martin Krajc as a distinctive figuralist who finds inspiration in modernist architecture, film, fashion photography and literature. Its title captures one of the enduring features of his work: the revelation, overlapping and penetration that takes place among the figural and zoomorphic themes and their relaxed depiction based on a combination of direct painter’s gesture and contemplative expression.
It has been designed in several interconnected sections, each of which summarizes one of the main themes of the artist’s current interest. Immersion has been designed to allow viewers to pass from two sides, as the introduction and conclusion convey a similar theme: the eye of a young women following the arriving and departing visitors; her body transforms into that of a swan. The swan also appears as a separate motif in one of the largest paintings. It is an exceptional work and this exhibition carries its title – Immersion.
Martin Krajc’s paintings speak to us by their thrilling energetic execution. They are based on drawings that provide the spatial design of the basic compositions and determine the main features of the bodies and objects which are covered by layers of paint that thicken the stage which is defined with growing intensity up to their complete suppression where even occasional shadows become lost.
Krajc generalized the course of his work in this year with the title Five Forms which briefly explains the basic layers of his approach: drawing, glaze, detail, gesture and pouring. They refer to the gradually penetrating layers of the most recent works, one on top of the other, that preserve their openness towards the background from which individual layers gradually emerge during the painting action itself.