Houdek’s paintings and drawings, collages, gouaches, and films are based on simple geometric principles. [...] A special painting technique, using a superimposition of numerous paint layers until the pictorial composition satisfies the artist’s expectations, gives the paintings a quasi-sculptural character. The playing with light and shade effects, which create a feeling of depth, contributes to this tactility. Even though his compositions are determined by the formal geometric principles of everyday reality, there are unmistakable hints of ideas of historic precursors, for example constructivism, and their appropriation in new sensory and perceptual associations.

“The crucial thing is the act of painting itself. I am very critical in respect to my work, or let’s say, decidedly destructive. As a result, more layers of paint have gradually come to be applied to my paintings, which are actually leftovers from previous paintings that didn’t work out. Either I didn’t like the composition or the brushwork wasn’t right, so that I would vigorously overpaint the first, or third, or sometimes even the fifth attempt. As a result, the previous layers became fully-fledged elements of the work. They are, in a sense, torsos and mementos. Through the process of overpainting and destruction, I get a feeling for the substance and the content of what I’m painting.”

Vladimír Houdek