Beauty of the Living Room

Beauty
of the Living
RoomDan Trantina – THE BEAUTY OF THE LIVING ROOM
Sometimes, it’s necessary to create an earthquake, even in the living room. Especially when there’s a looming threat of aesthetic comfort delivered by “proper” motifs that simply belong in the home. These motifs often include blooming bouquets and flowers, occasionally spiced up by a female nude. Just your typical living room standard. However, to avoid lazily perpetuating the floral tradition, which stretches from Baroque through the bourgeois 19th century to the tamed modernism of the following century, one must adopt a slightly punk attitude - and the result then finds balance. This is the essence of Dan Trantina’s recent exhibition (born April 30, 1965, in Přerov) at the Černá Labuť Gallery. Nudes and flowers alike weave through the drawn and painted structures in a challenging, abstract approach, where the viewer might struggle to grasp the wildness of the visual surface. Orientation is deliberately made difficult. Even the artist himself - an otherwise excellent creator of works on paper - makes sketches to ensure he doesn’t lose his way. For his floral “compositions,” these sketches often take the form of surprisingly elegant collages. Trantina’s work is undoubtedly about searching through the thicket of infinite possibilities, capturing the fleeting moment when a motif is glimpsed, knowing exactly when to stop layering and drawing, and taming the wildness. This might explain the sense of a continually evolving, self-generating work.

His paintings carry deeply personal testimonies of both personal and artistic freedom, offering an expressive explosion of truth that defies conventions and expectations. In this way, Trantina’s approach echoes that of his almost namesake - a generationally aligned American cinematic genius. For Dan, too, there’s an uncompromising quality that ensures authenticity while remaining witty and sarcastic.

The living room becomes the stage for personal histories. The painter calms with age and the number of children, yet revolutions can still happen on the sofa. The spirit does not wither, it materializes in the dissonance of painterly expression and banal motifs, defining and redefining the magic of personal - and everywhere, against the odds.

Exhibition Curator: Martin Dostál