To draw well means to be attentive to the things around us, it means having a good perception and an ability to observe. Seeing means knowing, in English they are synonyms. To draw is also to understand. Every architect should master the craft and art of drawing. Drawing a figure, especially a female figure, is a good form of training and an art-form as old as humankind.
When I draw, I really feel as if I am drawing. As if drawing the subject, pulling her out of the real world into the two-dimensional world of paper. The drawn human, by my act of drawing, is doubled, existing in both worlds. There is something very intense in the act of drawing. Both the act of drawing and the drawing itself. It is an imprint of the human model, a genetic code that relates to only two roots, two sources: that of the human sitter/model and that of the drawer/artist. Drawing is a perpetual process of understanding, of learning the subject, becoming one with the subject. It unites the two and the resulting genome gets entangled, woven in the genetic footprint of the two. The model may be aware of this kind of fusion and, although she’s mostly naked, feels stripped only at the realization of this intimate fusion. It is a greater nakedness than the physical nudity of the exposed skin. Try to stare at someone for more than ten seconds. They will feel naked.
To draw also means to attract attention, an interest. This energy flows both ways. I must draw the model and the model must draw me in. It’s a mutual attraction, not necessarily sexual. It is a kind of intimacy, yet without the physical contact. Thus it may be of the spiritual, unspoken, and untouchable kind. When I draw I must penetrate the subject, in and out, envelop it, inspired by it, breathe in its life, and breathe the life back into the duplicate, the image. I must be ruthless in my observation and answer to no one but the process itself, the art and craft of drawing (for art and craft are twins). I often feel exhausted after drawing, as if the drawing drew something out of me as well. As the same time I feel exhilarated by seeing this child, the product of creation, creativity. Exhilarating is the right word. It is the feeling of creation. A while ago it did not exist, there was a white paper, and now it does. It exists outside of me and it may survive me, just like children usually survive their parents, carrying on their spirit.
DRAWING IS GOLF
“Drawing is golf. With the first stroke you just get going in the right direction and the successive draw corrects the one before. With each move of the hand, you tighten your grip on the space. It is a process of refinement, evolution.”
DRAWING IS MAGIC
“Drawing draws the subject out of the space in front of you and by positioning it on the two-dimensional surface, you draw the third dimension out of its space onto the page. It is magic. The third dimension is woven within the grammage of the paper. If you are lucky, the other dimensions – the time, the psychology, the emotion – follow your draw and appear on the page, as if out of nowhere.”
DRAWING IS SYMPHONY
Drawing is a coordination of several players – the hand, the eye, and the brain. The hand controls the pencil, the eye controls the hand while surveying the space which the hand reveals on the flat surface. The brain, as the conductor, controls both eye and hand while employing memory, imagination, and restraint.
A HUNDRED CROWN BILL OR A CZECH MAN AND A SLOVAK WOMAN IN A SOCIALIST CONCEPT, 2007
This painting was created for an expatriot fundraising gala event at the Rockefeller Center in New York, where it was auctioned for a good cause. Because it was an opportunity for New York émigrés – Czechs and Slovaks, I decided to create a painting with a Czecho-Slovak theme. It is based on an existing design of the Czechoslovak one-hundred-crown banknote from 1961.
Petra, Pilsen 1999
Petra was a beautiful girl whom I met by chance in Pilsen during my Christmas visit from New York. It was the third of January, it was cold outside, so we took refuge in the warmth of one of the cafes in the city center. Petra was wearing a woolen sweater and reminded me of one of the young poet’s – the medical student from the “Poets” film trilogy – loves at the time. She could have been the Blueberry, Cavegirl or the Little Whistle. January was the month of the wolf in the pagan Slav calendar, and today, when I look at Petra, she reminds me of Enid Sinclair, the werewolf girl from the series Wednesday. It was necessary to immortalize her delicate features and beautiful eyes. I don’t know where she is today, nor have I ever seen her since. I don’t know if she ever wolfed out.
Rena, NYC 2006
Rena, an acquaintance of my sister, was a girl from D.C. who came to NYC to study make up at the MAC Makeup Studio in Manhattan. I had a free room and offered it to Rena for her stay. She in return offered to pose for me.
