Josef Bolf

Josef Bolf (1971). The essential painting of Josef Bolf, a key figure of contemporary Czech painting, delicately combines compulsiveness, vulnerability and physicality. In the themes that the author treats, his early experience with comic stylisation is strongly perceived, as well as the subsequent mastery of the scratchboard technique using ink applied to a layer of wax base. In his works, Bolf returns to his childhood, which he suggestively confronts with harsh reality – figures set in a dehumanised cities and confronted with feelings of loneliness, ruin and death, and the relationship between man and the environment in general are a theme that is continuously present in the artist’s work.