Komentovaná prohlídka výstavy Aleš Novák: PENDLER –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Jizerský romantik se zasekl v Praze

The Romantic from the Jizera Mountains Is Stranded in Prague

Aleš Novák (*1980, Prague) is a painter, sculptor, and architect whose work has long straddled the boundary between spiritual quest and visual reflection on the landscape. His work oscillates between the physical experience of nature and the intellectual articulation of space—between the body, the landscape, and the image.

The term “commuter” refers to a person living in one country who regularly crosses the border to work in another. In a symbolic sense, Novák also becomes such a commuter: an artist who crosses the imaginary border between two worlds every day. On one side stands home—a space shaped by the symbiosis of nature, inner freedom, and silence; on the other, the urban biotope, which offers communication infrastructure, a social system, and the inevitability of economic reality.

The parallel between the pendler and the Romantic artist is evident here. However, it is not merely a matter of leaving a safe space for the sake of livelihood. What is essential is the journey itself—the process of transition between worlds. In this movement, the artist becomes a medium: an intermediary through whom the experience of landscape and time is transformed into an image. The openness to an intense perception of reality that this process requires can, in the context of the contemporary rhythm of life, serve as an alternative stance.

Novák’s painting is, above all, a physical and tactile record of an encounter with the landscape. The gestures, textures, and layers of material on the canvas bear the traces of a struggle—an energetic clash between the external world and its internal reflection. The processual nature of painting here is not merely a technique, but a form of experience: a way not only to depict the landscape, but to relive it.

The motivation for his work is the search for balance between the inner and outer worlds. In this process, the artist becomes both a mirror and a mediator—someone who translates the experience of the landscape into the language of visual communication. The gallery thus transforms into a space where this experience is reconstituted: a dynamic field emerges between painting, object, and installation, in which intuition meets deliberate composition.

With the passage of time, Novák’s ability to communicate with the surrounding world has become increasingly precise and open. Yet it remains in the shadow of the journey itself—a continuous process of seeking, without which there would be nothing to share.