Even though Tadeáš Kotrba (* 1986) never paints en plein air, his paintings give the impression of works by ar tists from the end of the 19th centur y, when painters became primarily pilgrims wandering through the landscape. But even then we cannot imagine Kotrba as the personification of Monsieur Courbet with a walking stick and folded easel on his back. His journeys to exotic destinations in East and Southeast Asia or Nor th Africa remind us of a time when graduates of academies of art set out to discover the unfamiliarity and differentness of the oriental world, which would liberate them from the conventions of their alma mater and set them on new, unconventional path. And Kotrba’s work has been showing us for some time that this method of seeking inspiration continues to work today.

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text: Emma Pecháčková

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Catalog from the BADOKH edition