Kateřina Ondrušková's first solo exhibition for Double Q, Blue-Green Eyes, presents the latest series of paintings created during 2024. The title of the exhibition itself evokes the duality of perception - blue as the colour of inner melancholy and restless reflection, green as a symbol of life, all-encompassing nature and organically controlled cycle. These two positions are the way through which the painter has long viewed the world. This duality then resonates not only in the colour palette and techniques she uses, but also in the emotional and conceptual layers of her work, which links nature and her personal feel of the world. Contemplative exploration of nature, memories and human emotions has long been inherent in her work.
The scenes of Ondrušková's displayed paintings are deeply rooted in the motifs of nature, but at the same time they go beyond its simple representation. The gardens, wetlands and lakes represent a kind of perfect environment that invites to pick flowers, moments of quiet solitude, rest or undisturbed observation of the buzzing and humming - the desire to dwell, linger and blend in with everything around. However, the scenes are imbued with their own narratives the moment we notice the human figures that often accompany the various species of animals. All of this, in fact, transforms the canvases from mere mirrored landscape paintings into scenes interpreting the mental space of human experience, which is often much more complex and intimate.
The tones and textures of Ondrušková's canvases are processed with the aforementioned sensitivity to their emotional undertones. The distinctive brushstrokes, the scraping of paint and the final use of spray paint layer the compositions in exactly the way we live or relive the vibrant and breathing vitality of these scenes. The play between the visible and the hidden is therefore an important part of Ondrušková's work - figures, animals and plants appear and disappear in transparent layers, alluding to the fleeting quality of memories and experiences. This softening also emphasizes the intertwining of phenomena, their multiple layers and frequent ambiguity. Although narratives are present, they always remain partially unspoken.
A good example is the painting Anthill. The volatility of exuberant youth is depicted in a calm contrast to the teeming anthill in which the unknown figure lays their palms. This is linked to an old (perhaps Bohemian?) tradition according to which this act is supposed to ensure eternal youth and fertility to the one who does so. This meeting of different human temporalities with natural events in which community is more important than the individual life journey is enhanced by the depiction of butterflies, flighty fragile creatures that often do not survive more than one month.
Other flying animals, often water birds, appear in the gloom or darkness in Ondrušková's other paintings. The painting Guards shows a swimming woman accompanied by a whole flock that leads her in the direction of the water flow. Animals, the river and human beings merge into one - one masks and protects the other, in fact, in several canvases we can also find humans' closest animal partner, the dog. The alternation of day and night is an important part of this series of paintings. The work Hair Washing is an almost ritualistic glimpse into a private moment of taking care of one's own body, when one dissolves into the other again, in a nocturnal, almost magical tonality. The canvas Wetlands, in turn, depicts a young couple in the ambivalence of modernity and age-old nature - the phosphorescent cap beats into view, along with an empathy for how comfortable it would be to lie down in the damp soil.
Broader questions about our relationship to the world around us are also suggested by the use of paint scraping in the drawing moments of Ondrušková's work. This is particularly evident in the hair of the characters, the leaves of plants or the body of a slug (Slug or Mom's Hair Clip). This painterly gesture can again be perceived by the artist as placing attention on the flow of unified energy and the repetition of universal shapes inherent in all living things. The characters in Ondruskova's work dissolve as if they were simultaneously part of the world and outside of it. There is more of a depiction of various emotions in the reverie of paintings such as the pastel Meadow or the almost collage-like Night full of snails. This is ultimately underlined by the canvas Blue-Green Eyes, which suggests that to see nature is to see oneself in it.
Kateřina Ondrušková's exhibition is thus a concentrated reflection on the act of seeing and experiencing. The paintings, with their layered textures and rich palette, recall the interconnectedness of things and invite us to look more closely and remain in the space that emerges when we momentarily pause.
