WORDS BY THE AUTHOR / In my work, I’m following up on the previous cycle of paintings that stemmed from the oversaturation of media, advertisements, and visual attention grabbers, which surround us every day. I’m only referencing the previous cycle formally, regarding the contents, recently, I’ve taken interest in the unpredictable technological evolution and the relationship between humans and technology. Similar thematic can be also observed in sci-fi movies where technology triumphs over its creator – humankind. Originally, I painted the pictures based on photographs I took via an app for panoramic shots where I deliberately didn’t cooperate with the app and ignored its instructions (taking the shot alongside the guiding line, etc.), which created certain interesting deformations that come to life the moment someone stops playing along with a given technology. I used to merge the pictures in collage-like fashion and transfer them onto a canvas with paint. Nowadays, I work with the hackneyed elements of deformation applications and create my own deformative forms that I paint. Predominantly, I work with the oil painting technique on canvas.
ABOUT/ Jan Soumar was born on 27th August 1995 in Prague. Between 2011 and 2015, he studied at SUŠ Václava Hollara in Prague (The Vaclav Hollar College and Secondary School of Fine Arts). Since 2016, he’s been studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the Painting III. studio, firstly under Michael Rittstein, followed by Josef Bolf, Jakub Hošek and Nik Timková.
