Dušan Sekela: Čiary, máry, fuk

Dušan Sekela is one of the outstanding representatives of Slovak painting and one of the leading representatives of geometric abstraction. The exhibition in the exhibition spaces of Danubiana under the title Abracadabra will present a selection of his rich painting work.

He entered the art scene at the beginning of the 1980s, when the freedom of artistic expression, the free choice of themes and themes, as well as a freer expression of his own philosophy and attitude became evident in Slovak art. And so his idea „the most important thing for inspiration is to make illusions“ was fulfilled to the letter throughout Sekel’s artistic development. In his early works, he devoted considerable space to the human figure and the exploration of the many manifestations of man in society, in specific environments and in nature. Gradually, however, he moved more and more from the real form to a preference for the idea and the informational impulses of the time, because, as he himself says, „art is not a metaphor of life but of its ideas“. In the course of creative artistic development, new colour, shape and spatial configurations, the material composition of relief paintings on the verge of „sculpture-painting“ began to take on importance. Colour plays a very significant role in Sekel’s work. It is applied to an atypical support, a particular synthetic material that allows him to create a three-dimensional image – relief, where he applies paint by smearing, wiping, layering, pouring, dabbing or dripping.The geometric vibrating shape overlaps, confronts or harmonises with the coloured surface. This creates a compact morphology based on the juxtaposition of isosceles triangles, ellipses, spirals, rosettes, squares or quadrilaterals. When perceiving his works, we are impressed by the infinity and limitlessness of space, which invites us to enter the unknown, the unknowable and mysterious distances. This is why his cycles such as Infinity, Ergosphere or Irising Space are extraordinary. Their artistic interpretation is of course based on the philosophy of Sekel’s approach to reality and fantasy. As he himself says: „I base my knowledge not on the mythology of astrology, but I believe in and am fascinated by the scientific knowledge of astronomy and other branches of science. There is a wealth of mystery hidden in the mystery of human knowledge of the cosmos and of our intellectual and even artistic potential.“ Not only that, one can observe in many of the works that, with the increasing amount of information that the present offers, it seeks to visually test these informational cues to see whether or not they are plausible. This raises serious questions for him, the answers to which he artistically inserts into his „sculpture-paintings“. It becomes natural for him to wonder whether „is intelligence encoded in the very being of the cosmos? Where does it come from? Does it disappear with our death, as the whole universe disappears with each of us, or does its energy remain? Is entropy the only law that applies?“

Trinity, Entropy, Homocentricity, Mythology of Light, these are the names of the cycles in which Sekela hides the answers to the given questions. The natural artistic interpretation is the dynamic gesture, the phenomenon of light, the contrasting colours and above all the very expressive movement in the structure of the surface. But also remarkable is the three-dimensional spatiality, a kind of, as Sekela puts it, attempt at 3D. „Imaging allows me to offer the perception of the artefact through senses other than the visual, for example for the blind also haptically“. In his works, however, he has always expressed a desire for harmony in a chaotic world, trying to bring elements of spirituality and balance to the inner world of contemporary man. His works carry within them a mission, which contains the idea of not harming oneself, other people and one’s surroundings within contemporary civilization. And not only that, by a certain harmonizing charge in the individual cycles he creates a necessary symbiosis with contemporary society, a dialogue between man and his environment. It is natural that Sekela admires, as he himself says: „the breathtaking beauty of our earth’s cartography, the enchanting twinkle of mysterious stars, the fantastic richness of interpersonal relationships, love and art.“