Martin Kolář *1999

2015-2019: Secondary School of Applied Arts in Ústí nad Orlicí

2019-2023: Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (studio of drawing, Jiří Petrbok)

2023-(2025): Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (studio of drawing, Alice Nikitinová, Matěj Smetana)

Martin Kolář is one of the most talented current AVU students. Already from the first year, he attracted attention with his very precise painting technique in connection with his original style, in which he synthesizes the thesis of children's motives in the middle of mainstream entertainment with the antithesis of social pathology and the cult of institutionalized violence. Infantile aggressiveness with references to medieval and modern warfare forms an unexpected thematic counterpoint. The Freudian principles of destructive Thanat and promiscuous Eros, where the atomic bomb is also a phallic symbol, oscillate like a wave of alternating electric current. Kitsch and decadence, color and pain, ornament and symbol – following the example of Jacques Derrida, Kolář deconstructs reality and pays attention to death and grief ("le deuil") with a morose, but all the more true motto: "death is not outside of life, beyond its border, rather, it is written into it from the inside". Despite the infusion of philosophical nihilism, the images seem paradoxically open and playful, which elevates their bizarreness even more.

- Kamil Princ