Jakub JANOVSKY: Ground / Luca PATAKI: Can't see the forest for the trees

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Jakub JANOVSKÝ: Ground

Luca PATAKI:
Can't see the forest
for the trees

16 September - 4 November 2026

Jakub JANOVSKÝ: Ground
The Czech artist’s paintings are created from a uniquely post-socialist perspective. At the same time, they are very much international in nature: they embody the aesthetics of contemporary Western European figurative painting—as exemplified by Luc Tuymans, for instance—along with its existentialist worldview. In his slightly unsettling still lifes, everyday chairs appear as remnants of a bygone world, standing alone without their users. Janovsky sometimes presents these objects within various constructed arrangements, and at other times alone, damaged, and stripped of their function. In both cases, it is true that these chairs reflect less and less stability and more and more uncertainty. They carry within them the often unprocessed events of the socialist era, serving as a unique monument to these stories—ranging from the personal to the collective.

Luca PATAKI: Can't see the forest for the trees
In her site-specific installation currently being created for the Rechnitzer Gallery, Luca Pataki takes the symbol of the tree as her starting point. In this context, she is interested in the processes of putting down roots, growth, transformation, and concealment—in her drawings, personal experiences intertwine with universal themes such as the search for home, the experience of returning there, and the journey of finding one’s own path. The gallery’s basement is divided into two parts: the interior transforms into a sort of cave, representing the subconscious and the act of inward reflection, while the exterior space is dominated by expressive drawings, introducing the visitor to Pataki’s thinking—inspired by various myths—on cyclicality, transformation, and, not least, the pivotal role that creation and drawing play in the artist’s life. Pataki is fascinated by the tensions between outside and inside, dark and light, emptiness and fullness, and these themes run through the various levels of the installation as well.

JAKUB JANOVSKÝ

Jakub Janovský (1984, Jihlava, Czech Republic) is a Czech artist whose practice is primarily rooted in painting and drawing, complemented by installations and spatial interventions. His work explores the uneasy territory between the familiar and the strange, bringing together figures, interiors, architectural fragments, and imagined situations to create psychologically charged worlds. Janovský’s paintings often evoke feelings of isolation, vulnerability, boredom, and uncertainty, while at the same time leaving space for play, absurdity, and dark humor. Rather than presenting clearly defined narratives, he constructs ambiguous scenes in which memory, imagination, and everyday experience intersect.

A recurring interest in Janovský’s work is the relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit. Interiors, abandoned places, playgrounds, games, and various forms of structure become settings for situations that can feel both intimate and unsettling. His installations expand this approach into physical space, allowing individual works, objects, and architectural elements to form environments that the viewer can enter and experience. Across both painting and installation, Janovský is interested in the tension between order and instability, protection and confinement, innocence and threat.

Janovský studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the Studio of Drawing led by Jitka Svobodová. His work has been presented extensively in the Czech Republic and internationally, including exhibitions at the National Gallery Prague, City Gallery of Prague, GASK in Kutná Hora, Václav Špála Gallery in Prague, Kunstverein Pforzheim, Torula in Győr and the Ostrale Biennale in Dresden. He is a recipient of the NG 333 Award and the 2024 Sport in Art Award for Painting. His works are held in the collections of the National Gallery in Prague, City Gallery of Prague, GASK, and private collections in Europe and the United States.

LUCA PATAKI

Luca Pataki (1999, Budapest) lives and works in Dresden and Budapest. She graduated from the painting program at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2022. During her university years, she explored the boundaries of the pictorial plane, gradually incorporating elements of drawing, digital media, and installation into her work. In recent years, she studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Dresden on an Erasmus scholarship (2020–21) and then completed an Erasmus+ internship in Berlin (2022–23). In 2022, she served as a coordinator and instructor for the documenta fifteen project titled “CAMP Notes on Education,” which she joined in connection with Tímea Pók’s project “Blossom,” focused on raising social awareness. In 2023, after winning a DAAD scholarship, she returned to the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Dresden to complete a postgraduate program, where she had numerous opportunities to build international professional connections.

Since 2022, she has been a member of the Association of Young Visual Artists’ Studios (FKSE) and has organized and participated in numerous other projects, including the EU4ART international collaboration. In 2021, she won the Ludwig Foundation Award, and in 2018, the Barcsay Award.

Her works are inspired by self-examination, the exploration of the subconscious, and the labyrinth motif, through which she addresses personal and universal questions. Her works are often based on his so-called “five-minute drawings,” which form a complex web of ideas consisting of more than a thousand sketches. Her themes include automatism, duality, enigmatic qualities, and struggle, which she explores through an intuitive and conceptual approach.

She regularly participates in solo and group exhibitions, and in recent years has been exhibiting abroad with increasing frequency. In 2024, his first solo exhibition abroad, titled *Idea*, opened at the Galerie Goldene Pforté in Dresden. In 2025, he was awarded the Robert-Sterl-Preis; in connection with this award, her next solo exhibition will open in late October 2025.