Jan Merta

Jan Merta (*1952, Šumperk), one of the great Czech painters, is shaping a new understanding of art. He deconstructs the depiction of reality in painting by abstracting everyday objects until the actual subject is lost in the reduced representation, but the boundary to abstraction was never crossed in his paintings. In terms of form and content, his works never strayed from their subject matter. Merta studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague during the communist period, but never wanted to follow the socialist realist style. The artist drew inspiration from the works of Andy Warhol, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko, whose free thinking about art he discovered in his university library. In his painting, Merta works with motifs taken from everyday life, which he then abstracts so that their meaning becomes more complex and profound. A reduced representation of the human body, portraits, architecture-based elements, or free-floating objects are frequently found in Merta's works; they change and appear familiar and intimate depending on the perspective.

Jan Merta’s works belong to reputable private and institutional collections internationally including the Belvedere, Vienna, Austria; Forum Limbach, Limbach, Austria; PPF Art, Prague, Czech Republic; The Sublime Hyacinth Collection, Prague, Czech Republic; Collection of Duke Franz of Bavaria, Munich, Germany.