18 Woodstock Street
London W1C 2AL
+44 (0) 20 7495 1969 info@parafin.co.uk
Exhibitions — 2014
Hynek Martinec
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
11 September – 11 October 2014
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Hynek Martinec:
Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Installation view
Photo: Peter Mallet
Parafin is pleased to announce the inaugural exhibition at its gallery at 18 Woodstock Street, Mayfair, showing new paintings by the young Czech artist Hynek Martinec (b. 1980). Martinec’s works are ambitious statements about time, spirituality and the nature of reality. Martinec’s extraordinary hyperrealist paintings combine a deep commitment to art history with contemporary subject matter.
Known primarily for an ongoing series of photorealist portraits depicting his partner Zuzana, which have been exhibited internationally, Martinec’s new project is a series of large-scale monochrome paintings, collectively entitled ‘Every Minute You Are Closer to Death’. These technically astonishing works depict carefully contrived compositions that play with the archetypes of the devotional picture and the vanitas. Traditional signifiers of mortality such as dead animals, skulls, candles and empty bottles are mixed with contemporary references such as Damien Hirst’s notorious diamond skull displayed on a tablet computer, a digital radio, party balloons and cotton buds. In many of the paintings the subjects are distorted by shaving foam, a contemporary substance which appears solid but which is actually fluid and mutable, and which evokes both vanity and impermanence.
Selected Works
Hynek Martinec
Speak The Truth Even Your Voice Shakes
2013
Oil on canvas, 64 cm diameter
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00049
Hynek Martinec
33 Years of Armageddon
2013
Oil on canvas, 224 × 184 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00048
Hynek Martinec
You Will Become As My God
2013
Oil on canvas, 184 × 224 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00050
Hynek Martinec
Experience Of Being Alive
2014
Oil on canvas, 160 × 260 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00050
Hynek Martinec
Six Years Of Tabula Rasa
2013-2014
Oil on canvas, 160 × 260 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00052
Hynek Martinec
The English Gothic
2014
Oil on canvas, 107 × 122 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00053
Hynek Martinec
The Light Is In The Next Painting I
2013
Oil on canvas, 50 × 50 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00054
Hynek Martinec
The Light Is In The Next Painting II
2013
Oil on canvas, 50 × 50 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00055
Hynek Martinec
Quo Vadis, John?
2014
Oil on canvas, 50 × 65 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00056
Hynek Martinec
The End Of The Twentieth Century
2014
Oil on canvas, 50 × 65 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00057
Hynek Martinec
Hybrid Statue For The 21st Century
2014
Oil on canvas, 50 × 65 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00058
Hynek Martinec
Every Generation Has Its Own Revolution
2014
Oil on canvas, 80 × 100 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00059
Hynek Martinec
It Is Hard to Remember
2014
Oil on canvas, 80 × 80 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00038
Hynek Martinec
I Am Thinking About You
2014
Oil on canvas, 80 × 80 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00039
Hynek Martinec
1925 – 11 Years
2012-2013
Oil on canvas, 25 × 25 cm
Photo: Peter Mallet
PFN00042
Biography
Full Biography (PDF)
Hynek Martinec is currently exhibiting in the ‘John Moores Painting Prize 2014’ at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, as part of the Liverpool Biennial. In 2015 he will have a solo exhibition at the prestigious Vaclav Spala Gallery in Prague. Martinec was included in ‘Beyond Reality: British Painting Today’ at the Galerie Rudolfinium, Prague in 2012 and the Prague Biennial in 2009. He was included in the ‘BP Portrait Prize’ exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2007, 2009 and 2013, winning the Young Artist award in 2007. Martinec’s work is in private and public collections including the National Gallery, Prague and the British Museum, London. Martinec lives and works in London.
Films
Publications
Hynek Martinec: Every Minute You Are Closer to Death
Published by Parafin
Introduction by Ben Tufnell
Design by Matt Watkins
2014. 60 pp., 27 ills., 22 × 22 cm
Hardback
£18.00
Further Information
Issuu Exhibition Catalogue (Free)
Parafin produce a digital catalogue for each exhibition available to view and download on Issuu.
Links
Hynek Martinec website