Agulha Revista de Cultura: Jan Dočekal | Lubomír Kerndl

The name of Lubomír Kerndl, a visual artist, poet, art supporter, publisher and polygraph, is used in the context of several articles devoted to contemporary Surrealism in the Czech Republic in this edition of Agulha Revista de Cultura.

This is closely related to the surrealist group with the English name Stir up. I write about it in a separate article, but it is also remembered along with some of its members, which I consider to be creative personalities of Stir up. But I am not saying that other members of the group are not personalities of the present Czech Surrealism.

However, the set number of articles, a total of ten, does not provide an opportunity to focus the editor's attention on everyone at any given time. It is definitely connected with that, I have in mind first of all, good faith and editorial interest, to focus in the next time more on the names, which now sounded only briefly.

Let me say that Stir up is an expression with several distinct meanings, all of which are suitably applicable in conversation and written word in relation to Surrealism: to wake up, kindle, stir, upset. These activities are undoubtedly an excellent content for artists whose logos are in suprealism and imagination. The members of the Stir up group are definitely moving towards them. They are the point of their good resolutions. However, the permanent principle of surrealism, the leading principle of Surrealism, is nowadays in Central Europe merely a commemorated premise of Surrealism from the first half of the 20th century. It was not canceled, was not excluded, but is not up to date at this time. The flag of change of life - changes of the world at the moment does not crawl. He is waiting for his new erection. By whom? A new surrealist generation after the fall of current ideologies? Perhaps. Now, it is Lubomír Kerndl's words that Surrealism is a broad platform to express imaginary dreams and the mystery of imagination.

Lubomír Kerndl has been involved in photography since the early 1990s. The technical and aesthetic circumstances of the printing practice showed him the way to it. At the same time he created the first wooden sculptures. When digital photography emerged at the turn of the millennium, Kerndl became interested. In the possibility of image processing on a computer he found what he was looking for, what is conventional with his years. However, he waited for his first exhibition until 2003. Under the title The Game of Light he presented a set of color digital photographs in exemplary author's adjustment.

The beginning of Kerndl's interest in painting is dated to the middle of the first decade, soon after joining the Stir up group. And at the same time he courageously rents out a former water mill. It houses the first and still the only private surrealist gallery in the Czech Republic. It's called Devil's Tail. It is the subject of a separate article in this edition of Agulha.

In 2010 Lubomír Kerndl performed at the Painted House Gallery in the district town of Třebíč, where his printing house is located, with a collection of paintings and wooden sculptures. Another five exhibitions convincingly documented the directness of his journey of surrealistic direction. His artistic expression is based on loose combinations of overprinted color structures and dynamic brush lines with possible collage elements organized into non-figurative, emotionally tinted works. The sculpture is based on penetrations into the inner composition of the material and underlines its diverse spatial relationships and lines.

After 2015, Kerndl's partial orientation towards super-realistic drawing has been significantly strengthened. Free and illustrative in chamber formats. It is based on the principle of a surrealistic automatic linear drawing, from which the bizarre motifs of figural, objective and zoomorphic character are subconsciously visually separated. They have an accent in local coloring, and importantly in the spiritual space of imagination. Kerndl's art works are from that layer of emotional art that we find on the border of the depicting and non-depicting. What matters is that they answer positively to the eternal question of whether beauty is beyond realism. Here is a good assessment because Kerndl is an illustrator of the current edition of Agulha Revista de Cultura.

Lubomír Kerndl is an individualist, in accordance with most visual artists. Only in this way is it able to enter into a definite rational and emotional sphere of creation, to enter into the unknown behind the mirror and find the eventualities of new knowledge there. Yes, he is an individualist. However, he has also developed a sense of friendliness, manifested by the support of concrete belongings of art, with personnel and material factor. And it does not do it verbally, but where material means are above words.