Bedriska Uzdilova

Har­riet Daniels

Cre­at­ing a new breed of paint­ing Bedriska Uzdilova’s work invites view­ers to a world full of vibrant col­ors and mys­te­ri­ous vis­ages. While the Prague born artist’s paint­ings have the swirling energy of many abstract works, they also sug­gest some­thing quite dif­fer­ent: the mur­mur­ing of numer­ous voices beneath each layer. The artist’s work has changed greatly over the years, and is sel­dom truly abstract. She coura­geously goes beyond the given and famil­iar, pio­neer­ing new tech­niques and mate­ri­als in order to expand her own vision. Uzdilova grace­fully incor­po­rates pic­turesque ele­ments into her paint­ings. The result is a rep­re­sen­ta­tion that is dreamy, capri­cious, and out of this world. Uzdilova’s dream­scapes are endear­ing and mes­mer­iz­ing, and emerge out of a place where fan­tasy and real­ity inter­sect. Her inspi­ra­tion, comes from life-experiences, each like a story, are a tes­ti­mony of her obser­va­tion and of the feel­ings evoked by the scenery or char­ac­ters she comes across.

The imagery is per­sonal and objec­tive at the same time, ren­der­ing view­ers ready to relate to what they see. Whether it’s the sea, a pas­ture, a crowded bar, a mar­ket­place, or a vibrant still life, Uzdilova’s man­ages to encap­su­late a moment that is dra­matic and mov­ing. The mul­ti­tude of her sub­jects is over­whelm­ing, the rich­ness of her palettes astound­ing, owing to her abil­ity to segue between fig­u­ra­tive ele­ments and Abstrac­tion. Pub, 1998 is an end­less meadow flour­ish­ingly green, aqua­ma­rine and yel­low. In other works, lay­ers of fuch­sia, pur­ple, blue, red, and gold, deep and light, trans­port view­ers to a dimen­sion that seems far yet near, where they are clos­est to nature, with their bare eyes and hearts. The impor­tance of com­po­si­tional struc­ture, of move­ment, and of the per­ma­nent inter­ac­tion of col­ors, is the thread link­ing Uzdilova’s together. Indeed, color is a sig­na­ture of her work, and sig­ni­fies a new con­fi­dence and matu­rity in the artist’s han­dling of paint and evo­ca­tion of her sub­jects. Uzdilova’s ambi­tion for paint­ing as a car­rier of mean­ings that are acces­si­ble to all is evi­dence of her own immer­sion in the cul­ture of paint­ing and its poten­tial for transformation.