Šimon Kadlčák - indistinct chatter / distant siren wailing

About

Šimon Kadlčák’s paintings at the exhibition [indistinct chatter / distant siren wailing] consciously appropriate and loosely work with visual signs associated with the psychedelic and rave subcultures. They mediate a very specific experience that nevertheless, for those who have experienced these subcultures, is universal. As a result, it is not necessary to see the shapes and motifs in his paintings; they can also be re-experienced. They embody the experience of dissolving, of branching out in space and becoming one with our surroundings until the boundary between us and the world disappears. Besides human-vegetative metamorphoses, we also find the motif of the chameleon, which can be interpreted as symbolizing the ability to take on various forms. Within the context of the acid/rave subculture, it is a reference to ravers joined together into one collective body by their dancing where the individual is lost within the greater whole, and also to new ways of experiencing the relationship between ourselves and our surroundings. This aim of this changed consciousness is not to hide, but instead to feel an empathetic connection with the collective and to tune in to shared vibrations.

Šimon Kadlčák works with the genre spectrum of psychedelia, but uses its visual signs sensitively and conceptually. It is not just the figural motifs that organically dissolve, but also the painting’s surface and its very execution. Kadlčák explores the medium of painting by using surface structures and relief-like canvases to test its stylistic tools. The moment we see below the surface of the painting, we see how colors and structures are mixed and intertwined in a complex abstract background. On a deeper level, the splotches of color do the same as the figural and organic entities on the painting’s surface – they dissolve the boundaries between each other, becoming One.