Ivan Pavle is one of the most prominent figures in Slovak painting. Since the 1980s, he has been creating works in which he explores the relationship of man to the surrounding world – to nature, to other people and to himself. He is a sensitive observer of the rapidly changing world and its internal tensions which he interprets through a combination of abstract and figurative painting, spontaneous gestural expression and references to traditional themes such as the human figure, the male and female principle, the animal world, the four elements, and the Tower of Babel.
The collection of paintings entitled Potulky labyrintom (Wandering through the Labyrinth) represents Ivan Pavle’s extensive work, in which the labyrinth symbolizes the human condition. It is a path of searching, mistakes, obstacles, discovery and inner struggle. In his paintings Pavle projects events from the outside world and transformed by personal experience and emotional gesture. He uses color to create tense and calming spaces that balance between reality and dream. Figural motifs reveal the spiritual layers of man with his secrets, while natural elements and animal symbols represent the unlimited and unbridled energy of nature, which exceeds human efforts to conquer it.
The collection of paintings presents an artist who constantly tests the validity of traditional values and the meaning of communication. Pavle’s paintings act as visual maps of the world, in which we seek the right orientation and its "mystical truths."
Ivan Pavle (1955, Galanta) grew up in Prievidza. In 1981 he graduated from the Department of Monumental Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava (under Professors Dezider Castiglione and Ivan Vychlopen). Since the second half of the 1980s he has been regularly exhibiting in Slovakia and abroad; his works are part of public and private collections all over the world. He has completed creative stays in the US and France, where in 1989 he won the Jury Prize at the International Painting Festival in Cagnes-sur-Mer.
He lives and works in Bratislava. He is dedicated to painting, drawing, illustrations, sculptures, and furniture design. In his work, characterized by the interweaving of abstract and figurative painting, he explores the relationships and values that are the essence of human existence. His work has been extensively analyzed in two monographs.
