Jan Merta

Born 1952 in Šumperk, Czech Republic
Lives and works in Prague and České Lhotice, Czech Republic

Jan Merta's paintings explore the boundaries between figurative depiction and abstract painting, whereby the topic or subject selected is conveyed employing a strikingly reduced formal vocabulary. Socialised in the 1980s at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, the attempt to depict the essence is regarded as integral to the artist's approach. Merta’s paintings often revolve around the dispositive of power. The expressive power of Merta's works stems from allusions to the concrete, freed from useless additional elements and abstractly generating different narrative chains. The titles of the works are kept unambiguous while nevertheless creating as much space for thought as possible.