TEREZA BRLICOVÁ

The In-between of the Gaze

Painting Studio 3

Talking about your work process, you often emphasize intuition. How do you work with the threshold between intuitive gesture and conscious decision? The theme of boundaries appears in various forms in your work, so how do you generally approach it?
The relationship between intuition and conscious decision depends on the specific cases and questions I have answered (and the ones I haven’t yet). I often don’t have a clear idea of what I want to paint when I start working. Only while painting do I get a sense of the theme a particular painting is about. I make a natural gestural stroke through a curtain while the original ornament remains visible underneath, and this pattern, for example, says something about the time of its production, etc. Working with such content creates space for disruption and metaphorically lets us see what lies “underneath”. In other words, it allows me to depict what could be under the surface. We all see the faces of the people we meet, maybe we exchange a few words, but only a few of us know or even suspect what lies beneath the surface, what story is unfolding there.

You talk about the body as a source of knowledge. Does that mean that consciousness comes second for you? Do you think the body is “smarter” than the mind, and how does this relate to your work?
I think that consciousness indeed comes second. Not that it is less important, rather that it often comes only after the physical reaction, which is more emotional – for example, when we start laughing out loud and our whole body starts shaking. We first feel something in our body and only later are we able to realize what is actually happening to us. I also base my work on this realization.

Instead of a canvas, you use curtains for painting. We associate them with home, and their semi-transparency to light is also a very important characteristic. Do you consciously work with these concepts or is it more about randomness and the recycling of materials?
It is definitely a conscious choice. I found that I work well with curtain material and that it also carries a certain metaphor. In the installation, it allows me to work with what is happening “behind the picture”. And as I said before, I am also able to enter the curtain’s pattern in a painterly sense and insert some energetic or emotional line into it that may carry new information.

photo: Polina Davydenko