Jan Kaláb: Pluriforme

With this first solo show in France, Jan Kaláb reveals the extent of his technical mastery and the wealth of his universe. The Pluriforme exhibition is the opportunity to discover his three-dimensional work with some multispherical sculptures, standing and hanging. The exhibition also presents three series of works representative of his intense research on the medium of canvas. According to historiography, canvases are no longer mere paintable surfaces but real windows on the artist's soul, while sometime reflecting his own image back to the viewer. 

A first series revolves around circle geometry as a figurative subject. Overlapping and entangled shapes cover the surface of the canvas to the point of disorienting spectators who find themselves projected in the middle of translucent bodies. The notion of "layers" - of painting, material, colors and shapes- is predominant in Jan Kaláb's work. The final result produces an effect of volume and depth, and questions the relationship between the visible and the invisible. The second series draws out on his research on circles and examines their geometric perfectibility. The artist oscillates between perfectly rounded frames, some others giving the illusion of a perfect circle and oblong ones turned into dynamic objects. These paintings known as "Rainbow Circles" also run through big city walls around the world. They stand out for their very bright colors, whereas some pastel-tone pieces are introduced for the first time in the present show. The third series of artworks uses canvases and frames in a new way, as a material to be transformed. Cut out and assembled, these traditional objects turn into sculptures. Here, the artist abandons the flat surface of the canvas seen as a window on the soul for multilayered volumes. Painting and colors, which were essential values in the Rainbow Circles series, are pushed into the background in order to emphasize the almost sensual relationship between the canvas and the frame wood.