The Uncertain Realities of Jaroslava Severová

The exhibition showed her striking, characteristically multi-layered prints, objects d’art and installations.

Titled Uncertain Realities, in addition to her “fly-by walk-through” prints and graphic designs from the period 1965 to 1971, and her objects Aeon (2002–2019), Inside (2002–2019) and The Curve (2004), the exhibition displayed a cross-section selection of her computer prints from 2016–2020. Her most recent digital work illustrates Jaroslava’s gradual shift from the letteristic rechiselling of meaning (X 30b, 2016; EL 40A and EL 4D, 2017; Three B’s, Discovery 10i and Discovery  10f, 2018; Circle 3b, Three A’s and Memento mori 2, 2019) through her lexically-conceptual approach (Nothing, 2018) and malleable (if not outright baroguise) dynamics (Space S 10 and Space 133 A, 2016; Space Yi, 2018) to the abstract, velvety-black structures that evoke visions of the sublimation of human consciousness (Two 2016; Six and Seven, 2018; It 5, 2019; Movement, 2020).

Exhibition curator, Richard Drury, explains: “In her work, Jaroslava Severová strives to make sense of the essence of things. To what extent the essence consists in an artifice of immutable rules, to what extent it consists in a liquid, coincidental or unpredictable matter; whether it separates us from some hidden meaning or whether it is a mere veil of nothingness. The artist’s reflections and deliberations are principally embedded in her vigilant perception of the most intimate aspects of the human condition. It is that distinct humanistic headspring that feeds and waters the resurrective power which makes the audience perceive her work as the “image first seen”. As an artist, and later as a teacher, Jaroslava Severová has managed to win a rather unique place in the Czech visual culture over the past fifty years, and deservedly so.  She has been a pioneer and a major contributor to the development of computer graphic art in the Czech Republic and she has managed to fill this new form with a deeply authentic humanistic content. When she was presented with the prestigious Vladimir Boudník Award in 2005, it proved to be clear confirmation of the fact that the artist who started her career with an exhibition in Nîmes in 1968 continues to focus with the same intensity on finding clear outlines in our often obscure or uncertain realities.”

 Associate Profession Jaroslava Severová is an academic painter, and she teaches at the Department of Art, Visual Culture and Textile Studies of the Faculty of Education, University of Hradec Králové. She studied with Professor Jiří Horník and Professor Vojtěch Tittelbach at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. She is a creator of prints, drawings and paintings. She creates original spatial installations and illumination art. Since the 1990s, she has been a major contributor to computer graphic art. Her art and installations have been exhibited in many galleries both in the Czech Republic and abroad.

Photograph: Jakub Severa and GASK