Lot 146

Michal Bauer (1969) VERTICAL MEDITATION

Michal Bauer’s Vertical Meditation is a beautiful example of his most recent work. Here the artist concentrates all of his experience with structures developed over the past 20 years. Advancing from his initial complex overlapping geometric forms to his superb concrete compositions communicating with pure colors, he achieved his current inimitable interpretation. He creates a vibrating structure by gradually applying an acrylic foundation and then using a palette knife to apply a thick layer of oil paint. The “invisible” pink underlines its harmony of form and contrast with the smooth, flat canvas. On reproductions the images, which are difficult to fully capture, exude a specific quiet intimacy that transforms depending on the light.

Michal Bauer has painted without interruption since secondary school. He has shown his work at 44 solo exhibitions as well as numerous collected exhibitions. This spring he celebrated 30 years of working in his studio, where he has been since his third year of studies at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague. For several years he has solely focused on painting; over the previous 15 years he modelled automotive interiors in Germany and Italy, primarily in the winter months for Mercedes Benz. Approximately 200 of his paintings are represented in public and especially in private collections in the Czech Republic and abroad.