Hanzlík Daniel *1970

Star, 1997

canvas, drawing in graphite, 160 × 128 cm
Alongside new media, site-specific installations and performances, painting is one of Daniel Hanzlík's artistic positions whose common link is an interest in light. Light as a subject, content, expression or technical means is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the artist, whether it is based on the physical laws and properties of natural and electrified light, or on its transcendent qualities. Hanzlík's paintings and drawings develop this theme through an abstract language based on a subtle line made up of geometric shapes of circles, lines and points, whose ingenious construction creates the impression of a spatial network emerging from the dark surface of the canvas, as in the painting Star from 1997. The spatial and luminous configuration in the painting, which evokes a purely abstract event of transcendent qualities, is based, as in other paintings, on a specific motif, the starting point of which is an electronic image. As a rule, it is a certain section or detail, whose motif is further interpreted and isolated by the artist into a unique painting. Provenance: the painting comes from the collection of the Foundation for Contemporary Art Prague.