Matěj Frank: ˈdrɪpɪŋ ˈdrɔːɪŋ

Matěj Frank graduated from the Faculty of Arts of the Ostrava University and the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, where he has been working as an assistant professor since 2016. He studied and now works in Wroclaw, Poland, and Opava, Czech Republic. He is also a member of the group Bludný kámen (Boulder), a curator of contemporary art exhibitions and an organizer of experimental concerts. His art degree in sculpture is reflected in his artwork by using space in relation to site, time, movement, physicality and sound. Drawing as a cornerstone of all visual art media is crucial for Frank’s artwork. He circles around it while crossing over to other media, in particular performance that often includes sound experiments. Watching his closest environment and reflecting on permanent everyday changes generates a lot of inspiration for him that becomes bewildering and confusing when overlaid. Yet, Matěj Frank keeps the form or process simple in his artwork.

For the Altán Klamovka Gallery, he proposed a spatial installation that creates a situation for drawings made at a given place and time. Frank’s project “Drip-Through Drawings” is based on a slow process, coordinated coincidences, poetics, work automation and criticism of mass production as well as on the reflection of the present where we keep multiplying and reproducing something. The event preceding the private viewing will take a couple of hours and will become a part of the opening of the Altán Klamovka Gallery as an art laboratory. What is important for this specific artwork and Frank’s artwork in general is process, transformation and passing time. The givenness of place or an imaginary situation are triggers in Matěj Frank’s mind that then create a tangle of ideas and their execution where he releases the classical medium of drawing on paper and experiments with it not only in space but also in the actual creative process. He often grasps time and transformation physically and uses his own body to indicate changes through very clear, simple yet sophisticated concepts. To him, drawing is an immediate, direct and flexible way to capture a certain fact like a line that connects two ideas.

Lenka Sýkorová