JAROSLAV VALEČKA | DARK LYRICS | 5 February—15 March 2026
The new cycle of paintings by academic painter Jaroslav Valečka, titled "Dark Lyricism" (Temná lyrika), opens up a space where painting becomes a bearer of silent tension, memory, and existential unease. Valečka has long developed a distinctive visual language that oscillates between figuration and symbol, between a concrete landscape and its inner, psychological form. In this series, his painterly expression is further condensed and gains urgency.
The paintings of "Dark Lyricism" are permeated with melancholy and a peculiar, slowed-down dramatic quality, which is often disrupted by subtle irony and surprising wit. It is precisely this counterpoint that is characteristic of Valečka's work: darkness is not absolute but is balanced by detachment, grotesque detail, or an unexpected shift in meaning. The painter works with stories, narrative fragments, and hints of plots that are close to folk literature, legends, and tales rooted in the landscape of North Bohemia.
A significant source of inspiration for the artist is the environment of the Sudetenland, especially the Lusatian Mountains region and the surroundings of Česká Kamenice, particularly the village of Líska, where he comes from. This landscape, marked by historical upheavals, collective memory, and the specific poetics of forgotten places, appears in the paintings not as a topographical record but as a mental space. Figures and landscape fragments emerge from darkened color fields like memories, myths, or specters, whose meaning remains open and multilayered. Valečka works with muted colors, strong light contrast, and a gestural brushstroke that is not descriptive but primarily emotional. The painting here is not an illustration of a specific story, but rather its fragment – a pictorial ballad in which tragedy mixes with humor, pathos with ordinariness. The lyrical dimension of the cycle is evident in the rhythm of the compositions, in the repetition of motifs, and in the silent dialogue between the painting and the viewer.
The "Dark Lyricism" exhibition presents Jaroslav Valečka as a painter who can connect the traditional medium of painting with current existential questions, regional memory, and narratives rooted in folk culture.
The Czech Gallery of Modern Art thus becomes a place to encounter a painting that does not seek a quick effect but a long-lasting inner resonance.
PhDr. Renáta Mužíková, Ph.D., exhibition curator
Guided tours: Tuesday, February 10 and Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Evening reading: Thursday, March 5, 2026
