May 21 to July 4, 2026
Vernissage: Thursday, May 21, 5PM to 8PM<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Veronika Pausova\u2019s paintings begin by taking apart the simple stuff of everyday life as a way of getting closer to it. Fragments of the ordinary are unfurled with curiosity and care to tease out the messy complexities. Here, feeling<\/em> trumps fact or likeness. Perfect arcs of breast milk rendered in rhythmic, tidy brushwork seek not to illustrate the actual act but to prompt a heightened sensitivity akin to the real experience. It is Pausova\u2019s wide scope of visual vocabulary and singular experimentation with paint that allows her to probe the vulnerable and the uncontrollable. Pausova\u2019s newest solo exhibition, Clowning the Frets<\/em>, offers a cheeky mouthful of seemingly distinct actions and oddities, deliberately and delightfully tied together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pausova\u2019s scenes are assembled in layers, one always informing the next. Underpaintings begin with textiles stamped into oil and turpentine-soaked surfaces, which leave tactile imprints behind, upon which diverse paint applications and exquisitely illustrated forms accumulate. Bright trails of paint-soaked thread\u2014hair, water streams, marionette strings, a trolling fishline\u2014chart our attention from one thing to the next, while runaway registers of bright, textured planes push beyond and around the canvas. Printed cut-outs and digital sketches help the artist plot the painting\u2019s course, but it is ultimately experimentation that takes the lead in deciding whether a toe or an ear will be revealed or hidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout these works, the body\u2014often the artist\u2019s own\u2014is delineated, animated, and amplified, but never illustrated in its entirety, which would be, paradoxically, unsettling. A gangly, jigging pair of pants\u2014far taller than Pausova\u2019s typical human scale\u2014towers over zucchini blossoms erupting in springtime chorus, the rest of the exaggerated whole inconceivable. Without a complete body or clear plot as a natural guide, a buckling knee, a jerky arm swing, and an anxious shoulder have larger roles to play, their quirks and details enhancing an underlying agitation and anticipation. A squirming onesie torso is cocooned by a maternal turtleneck, stretched and supported by neighbouring hands and appendages. It is both thrilling and much too much, being pulled in different directions at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What holds it all together is but a barely-contained feeling: a mix of nervousness and joy, prickling and vibrating right at the surface. A semblance of structure from the generally askew but solid frames and murmurs of a familiar narrative\u2014rosy sunburnt arms drawing back a curtain, or the rhythmic rise and fall of the sun, or the mechanical pulse and delight of a hissing sprinkler\u2014offer the comfort of normalcy to an otherwise teetering world, but only just.<\/p>\n\n\n\n