Martina Chloupa

* 1976

Martina Chloupa is one of the most versatile artists on Czech scene.  Admirable scope of her activities - from minimalistic drawings to  architectonic shapes - marks the author's technical and technological  experience acquired during her many years at various art schools. Martina sculpts, carves, casts, draws, takes photos and illustrates. She is the author of playful erotic installations / body-shop, screens/ as well as of a crucifix in a sacral space. She creates fine sculptures or massive objects - often of utility. Her favorite materials are plastic, concrete, artificial stone, wood and at the same time she keeps on painting. Martina tirelessly explores the potential of her painting style and she doesn't hesitate to experiment. Along the classical painting techniques she also utilizes poured pigment and sand, she likes neon colors as well as softly modulated, almost monochromatic palettes employed sometimes in almost naturalist drawings and other times in byzantine decorativeness and abstraction. Her thematic range is plain and simple - animals, figures, faces of women, flowers and objects of everyday use. They are often torn out of context, their shapes deformed, fragmented and therefore relativized in their common meaning. On paintings of Martina Chloupa you can see walking legs, headless torsos, floating flowers, solitary birds, levitating pillows, beach umbrellas - none of these anchored in space suspended in timelessness. The author dwells in reality but out of its rational perception. Visible and tangible world is spontaneously transformed and changed according to her emotional and psychological state. Therefore her expression ranges unexpectedly - from grotesque all the way to melancholy.

 

Jitka Handlová

Solo Exhibitions

2013 Where is my home?, Uffo gallery, Trutnov
2012 Always in transition, Kotelna gallery, Říčany
2011 Painting, object, České pojišťovny gallery, Prague
2011 Neck deep, Sýpka gallery, Valašské Meziříčí
2009 Up and down, Beseda gallery, Ostrava
2009 Linked by light, Church of the Holy Spirit, Zábřeh, Ostrava
2008 Thailand as seen by czech painters Martina Chloupa a Jan Stosse, National gallery, Prague
2007 Magic, Gallery of czech sculpture, Prague
2007 All sorts of things, Minikino gallery, Ostrava
2006 Portraits, Zlatá štika gallery, Kolín
2006 The thought, Jídelna gallery, Česká Lípa
2005 Ladies, no-ladies, Ouky Douky caffé, Prague
2005 The garden, XXL gallery, Louny
2005 Companions, Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague  
2003 Paintings, Exhibition hall of Bílina church, Teplice
2002 Nothing, Erasmus gallery, Mělník
2002 Images, Řehoř Samsa gallery, Prague
1999 “Oh, these ladies”, Suterén gallery, Ústí nad Labem

Group Exhibitions (selection)

2012 Going nowhere, the church of Anthony of Padua, Sokolov
2011 Love is blind, sex is elsewhere, Artinbox gallery, Prague
2011 Art Hotel Europa, Forte Marghera, Venice, Italy
2009 Nineteen years later, Embassy of the Czech republic, Berlin
2009 They neither drank nor ate, just did this, U radnice gallery, Tábor
2009 Seized, Wroclav, Poland
2008 In Silence, Project Rothschild 69,Tel Aviv
2007 People movers, Gallery of czech sculpture, Prague         
2006 People movers, Gallery of czech sculpture, Prague
2006 Kozel, Kozel, XXL gallery, Louny
2005 International Biennale of contemporary art, National gallery, Prague
2005 Does it shine or not?, Doubner gallery, Prague
2005 Plants, from idyll to hallucination, Gallery of czech sculpture, Prague
2005 13 x 18, AVU gallery, Prague
2005 Prof. Milan Knížák's school of inter-media, Art Factory gallery, Prague
2005 Master students of AVU Prague, National gallery, Prague
2005 Rundgang, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
2003 Agels,  Gallery of czech sculpture, Prague
2003 Eros, eros, Eros,  Gallery of czech sculpture, Prague
2003 Beasts,  Gallery of czech sculpture, Prague
2003 Installation, Faust and the devil’s gallery, Prague
2003 Thrashing , HAMU, Prague
2003 Exhibition of the youngest, National gallery, Prague
2003 Our plants, Kámen castle, Prague
2000 Eurohead, Prague – Krakow - Helsinki