hynek martinec at parafin, london: 11 september - 11 october 2014
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Parafin, London: 11 September - 11 October 2014. Private view: 10 September, 6—8pm.Parafin is pleased to announce the inaugural exhibition at its gallery at 18 Woodstock Street, Mayfair, showing new paintings by the young Czech artist Hynek Martinec (b. 1980). Martinec’s works are ambitious statements about time, spirituality and the nature of reality. Martinec’s extraordinary hyperrealist paintings combine a deep commitment to art history with contemporary subject matter.TRANSCRIPT
18 Woodstock StreetLondon W1C [email protected]
Parafin is pleased to announce the inaugural exhibition at its gallery at 18 Woodstock Street, Mayfair, showing new paintings by the young Czech artist Hynek Martinec (b. 1980). Martinec’s works are ambitious statements about time, spirituality and the nature of reality. Martinec’s extraordinary hyperrealist paintings combine a deep commitment to art history with contemporary subject matter.
Known primarily for an ongoing series of photorealist portraits depicting his partner Zuzana, which have been exhibited internationally, Martinec’s new project is a series of large-scale monochrome paintings, collectively entitled ‘Every Minute You Are Closer to Death’. These technically astonishing works depict carefully contrived compositions that play with the archetypes of the devotional picture and the vanitas. Traditional signifiers of mortality such as dead animals, skulls, candles and empty bottles are mixed with contemporary references such as Damien Hirst’s notorious diamond skull displayed on a tablet computer, a digital radio, party balloons and cotton buds. In many of the paintings the subjects are distorted by shaving foam, a contem-porary substance which appears solid but which is actually fluid and mutable, and which evokes both vanity and impermanence.
Hynek Martinec is currently exhibiting in the John Moores Painting Prize 2014 at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, as part of the Liverpool Biennial. In 2015 he will have a solo exhibition at the prestigious Vaclav Spala Gallery in Prague. Martinec was included in Beyond Reality: British Painting Today at the Galerie Rudolfinium, Prague in 2012 and the Prague Biennial in 2009. He was included in the BP Portrait Prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2007, 2009 and 2013, winning the Young Artist award in 2007. Martinec’s work is in private and public collections including the National Gallery, Prague and the British Museum, London.Martinec lives and works in London.
— For further details and images please contact:
Caroline Widmer Matt Watkins Pickles PR ParafinT +44 (0)7908 848 075 T +44 (0)7932 085 633 E [email protected] E [email protected]
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Press Release— Hynek MartinecEvery Minute You Are Closer to Death —11 September –11 October 2014—Private view:10 September, 6—8pm
Hynek MartinecSpeak The Truth Even Your Voice Shakes, 2013Oil on canvas, 64 cm
18 Woodstock StreetLondon W1C [email protected]
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Editor’s Notes—
Parafin—Parafin has been launched by former Haunch of Venison London directors Ben Tufnell and Matt Watkins. They are joined by the founder of London gallery Master Piper, Nicholas Rhodes.
Located at 18 Woodstock Street, just off New Bond Street, Parafin will represent a broad selection of contemporary artists from emerging names to established international figures.
Forthcoming Exhibitions—Parafin’s exhibitions programme commences with Hynek Martinec, followed by solo presentations by Enrique Martínez Celaya, Tim Head and Hugo Wilson.
Gallery artists—Tim Head Nancy Holt Hynek Martinec Enrique Martínez Celaya Justin Mortimer Katie PatersonHiraki Sawa Hugo WilsonUwe Wittwer
Woodstock Street, Mayfair—Woodstock Street is located on the northern edge of Mayfair, Lon-don, between New Bond Street (via Blenheim Street) and Oxford Street. Parafin is situated near to the historic tiled Art Deco façade of auction house Bonhams.