Jan Merta: My Fault?

On the occasion of the OPEN art 2018, Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle presents the work of renowned Czech painter Jan Merta. First attempts at describing the artist’s paintings invariably fail when trying to make out the representational aspects in his complete reduction of forms. At first glance the eye is confronted with a minimalist representation of an object, which, upon a closer inspection, reveals itself to be more concrete and
vivid. Jan Merta, one of the great Czech painters, has been shaping a new concept of art. He deconstructs the depiction of reality in painting by abstracting everyday items to such an extent that the actual object loses itself in the reduced representation—yet the artist never crosses the line into abstraction. In terms of form and content, his works never leave the object.