Throughout his career, Alexej Vojtášek tried to delve under the surface of depicted reality through a meditative interpretation of the theme, which from the beginning was connected with the uncovering of a certain secret. The exhibition entitled Metamorfózy predstáv / (Metamorphoses of imagination) presents the artist’s paintings and prints in which he created his own iconography and symbolic language combined with geometric signs where pentagrams, squares, and triangles alternated with figural shapes, especially mysterious female figures. The perfect drawing of the motif was an important principle of his expression. Light and color qualities were added to it which helped to interpret the symbolic transformation of the content-dominant motif, based on the philosophy and signs of ancient cultures. In doing so, he expressed his respect for the thousand-year-old records and traces of man and time, as well as their age-old wealth of ideas. Color tones and light naturally changed the internalization of the work’s content and the magical symbolism he inserted into the transformations of the female and male figures.
He exhibited in New York, Washington, Rome, Nuremberg and Santa Fe. He always filled his works with a world full of imaginative ideas, stories, myths, and legends, such as lost Atlantis, whose legacy the artist symbolically interpreted for us in some paintings. In individual compositions, he was more inclined toward the content and its connection with an internal symbol whose artistic form often transforms into spiritual abstraction. Illustration was also close to his heart and he created illustrations for more than 200 books for the Tatran, Slovenský spisovateľ, Smena, Mladá tvorba, Príroda and Mladé letá publishing houses. Vojtášek’s artistic expression is filled with an amazing ability to capture the emotional world of people today. His works are an expression of joy, playfulness, and symbolism, but also unusual beauty and mystery.
Dagmar Kudoláni Srnenská
Alexej Vojtášek was born on December 13, 1952 in Roudnice nad Labem, Czech Republic. From 1974 to 1980 he studied at the Department of Printmaking and Book Illustration under Professor Albín Brunovský at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. From 1985 to 1990 he was a teacher and assistant to prof. Brunovský at the Academy in Bratislava. From 1994 to 1995 he then went on to work at the Department of Marketing Communication of Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava from 1994 to 1995. Vojtášek was a member of several societies and associations; his membership in the international artists’ club Art Diagonal of Vienna from 2014 was especially important. In 1985, he won the Ex Aequo Award at the Nuremberg International Drawing Triennial, and in 2023 the Crystal Wing - Extraordinary Lifetime Achievement Award. He lived in Bratislava. In addition to printmaking and painting, he was involved in illustration, drawing, sculpture, spatial objects, stamp and jewelry designing, and monumental architectural paintings. He died in Bratislava on May 30, 2023.
