Entities: Tomas Lampar & Josefa Stepankova

entities

Tomáš Lampar & Josefa Štěpánková

CAVIN-MORRIS GALLERY

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ENTITIES: Tomáš Lampar & Josefa Štěpánková

CAVIN-MORRIS GALLERY New York, NY entities > 2

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ENTITIES : TOMÁŠ LAMPAR & JOSEFA ŠTĚPÁNKOVÁ Cavin-Morris Gallery is pleased to present the spiritualist and visionary work of architect Tomáš Lampar and his spiritualist great-grandmother Josefa Štěpánková.

Lampar’s work comes from channeling entities from an undefined alternate state of reality or dimension. His great-grandmother’s work comes from the channeling of people she lost in the course of her life, especially family members with whom she spiritually connected. There is a floral presence in her work that was common to many of the Bohemian and Moravian spiritualists in the late 19th and early part of the 20th Century.

Lampar’s drawings also resonate with a botanical presence.

Here is what scholar Terezie Zemánková says about Lampar’s process in the catalog essay: It is the principle behind this botanical vision, where the flower is both the form and the symbol, which Tomáš Lampar shares with his great grandmother Josefa Štěpánková. They share the same hypersensitivity, and the ability of “flow-ness”: a power to connect with the entities beyond senses. Their motives for creation differ, however. While the works of Lampar are almost independent from his personal and professional life, the spiritual drawings of Josefa Štěpánková reflect her dramatic personal history.

The two different approaches to visionary and spiritualistic imagery make this exhibition compelling.

Lampar’s work is wild, like unexplained light phenomena in a night sky. His drawings constantly reinvent color in unexpected ways that only accidentally refer to Wassily Kandinsky and Annie Besant. His process involves pulling new variations on what can be done with the innate qualities of the chalks, crayons, pastels and watercolors he uses. Everything he draws is germane to these cross-dimensional entities. Štěpánková’s work is more in the language of her culture.

Josefa Štěpánková often placed small portraits of her deceased ones into her drawings, or images of their spiritual, amorphous bodies. The faces grow directly from flowers, which sometimes contain messages, declarations or legacies of a religious nature. The leaves and petals are finished with simple details, in keeping with the aesthetics of the 1920s (ornaments of folk art, art deco or echoes of art nouveau).

In the end their messages meet in space, joined by art, fulfilling the function of a vehicle that allows communication between non-material modes of existence -- healing is the hoped for outcome. In doing so each invents a personal yet universal language we can still understand.

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TOMÁŠ LAMPAR

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Untitled, 2001, China ink on paper, 16.54 x11.61 in / 42 x 29.5 cm, TLa 1 7 < entities

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Untitled, 2002, Color pencil on paper, 16.54 x 11.61 in / 42 x 29.5 cm, TLa 7 entities > 10

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Untitled, 2014, Pastel on paper, 9.25 x 19.69 in / 23.5 x 50 cm, TLa 28

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Untitled, 2014, Pastel on paper, 9.25 x 19.69 in / 23.5 x 50 cm, TLa 33

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Untitled, 2011, Pastel on paper, 17.72 x 24.41 in / 45 x 62 cm, TLa 34

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Untitled, 2015, Pastel on paper, 11.69 x 16.54 in / 29.7 x 42 cm, TLa 39

Untitled, 2015, Pastel on paper, 11.69 x 16.54 in / 29.7 x 42 cm, TLa 40

Untitled, 2015, Pastel on paper, 11.69 x 16.54 in / 29.7 x 42 cm, TLa 41

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Untitled, 2015, Pastel on paper, 11.69 x 16.54 in / 29.7 x 42 cm, TLa 44

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Untitled, 2015, Pastel on paper, 11.69 x 16.54 in / 29.7 x 42 cm, TLa 45

Untitled, 2015, Pastel on paper, 11.69 x 16.54 in / 29.7 x 42 cm, TLa 46

Untitled, 2015, Pastel on paper, 11.69 x 16.54 in / 29.7 x 42 cm, TLa 47

Untitled, 2015, Pastel on paper, 11.69 x 16.54 in / 29.7 x 42 cm, TLa 48

Untitled, 1999, Watercolor on paper, 19.69 x 27.56 in / 50 x 70 cm, TLa 62

Untitled, 1999, Watercolor on paper, 11.81 x 16.54 in / 30 x 42 cm, TLa 16

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Untitled, 1999 Watercolor on paper 11.81 x 16.54 in / 30 x 42 cm TLa 27

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JOSEFA ŠTĚPÁNKOVÁ

Untitled, 1920s (Following Pages) Pencil on paper 11.81 x 17.32 in / 30 x 44 cm JoSt 6

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Untitled, 1920s, Pencil on paper, 17.32 x 23.62 in / 44 x 60 cm, JoSt 7

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ENTITIES : Tomáš Lampar (b. 1967) and Josefa Štěpánková (1877-1966)

By Terezie Zemánková March 2016 The Entities exhibition marks the New York City debut of Czech artist and architect Tomáš Lampar as well as his great grandmother, Josepha Štěpánková. Though the drawings and paintings of this architect are refined and aesthetically sophisticated, they differ from other purposeful artistic intentions because the origins of the work lie beyond the will of the artist himself. Lampar’s work is based on his exceptional, and at times, fully deliberate ability to see those layers of existence that lie beyond the limits of ordinary sensory perception. His drawings are not only recordings of phenomena occurring in the space that immediately surrounds him, but are also dimensional in a broader sense. Lampar is a mediator – a conduit for a flowing channel of energy which takes place beyond geometric rules and beyond linear time. He witnesses the creation of “bodies” and forms, which he calls “molds”. His drawings are visualizations of these open and embracing spirits, whose touch can take the shape of entities of light as they rise out of the margins.

The artistic process of Tomáš Lampar occurs in several phases, which he calls “motions obtained by sitting”. Initially, he feels an impulse to create. The whole universe converges over his work desk and energy starts to “flow” through him. Sometimes he touches the core of this immediately, sometimes he must put himself in the flow, step by step.

Once the flow has begun, the presence approaches and becomes a compact shape. The outer trappings and core gradually materialize, and the details get more and more distinct. Energy eggs – or “bodies“, as he calls them (they seldom resemble human bodies in their shape)— pour into the space, then move away. Changing their appearance, they pulse, split and then connect together again. Lines of power approach and then withdraw. It is not a matter of static perception, but a never-ending dynamic process.

He calls this moment a direct, total connection. The last sequence of the creation is the so-called “fading away“, when the entity slowly moves back again, and dissolves into space-time.

Some of Lampar’s series of drawings are created quickly, within ten or twenty minutes, before the entity fades. Other times, Lampar can stay connected with the entity and its movements for several days. The energy of the presence transcends casual endeavors, so in these instances he is able to stay connected even when breaking to perform daily activities. “At the moment when I dip my brush into paint, I am ejected into the same time-space and I can follow an interrupted line of a given sequence. I can be constantly in contact,” he comments. There are times when the vision is so strong that it is almost impossible to interrupt it. In these cases, Lampar must follow the wave that ceaselessly moves through him, in a dance of give and take.

In addition to these more or less automatically processed drawings, he also works as a hunter of the energy rather than serving only as a channel. It is in this mode that the work of this exhibition was created. He must again and again reactivate his physical experience while working at his drawing desk, whether it is a vision of beings above the fire-bowl of a furnace, or above an anvil while forging iron, 99 < entities

or a sensation influenced by his interpretation of the moment – he must always transform his vision into a drawing.

Lampar’s drawings and paintings are made in quick touches of brush, crayon, or ink, without any previous plan or sketch. He chooses the size of his paper and his colors intuitively, as well as his drawing and painting materials. The material is not a mere medium for him, but an equal partner in his creative activity. Lampar is almost magically attracted, beyond his will, to a certain color or whole color scales. He enjoys utilizing the structure and absorption qualities of a piece of paper, the speed of applying and the drying of inks, the hardiness of pigments roasted in his own oven and also of those found in nature, the softness and dustiness of crayons and charred sticks, the obvious line of colored pencils, the blurring and settling of watercolor on the wet surface, and the pearly shine of colored inks. These all are agents of his work, informing not only the aesthetic appearance of a piece, but most importantly, its meaning.

Lampar calls one of the forms depicted in his drawings “flowers”. His usage of floral motifs puts him closer to other artists from Bohemia and Moravia, including Anna Zemánková, (also shown at Cavin-Morris Gallery). For Lampar, the flowers are beings in their spiritual “light” stage. They are beings that are still developing: forms that are still un-uttered and vibrating, but are already gifted with a certain quality, and with a promise of future existence.

It is the principle behind this botanical vision, where the flower is both the form and the symbol, which Tomáš Lampar shares with his great grandmother Josefa Štěpánková. They share the same hypersensitivity, and the ability of flow-ness: a power to connect with the entities beyond senses. Their motives for creation differ, however. While the works of Lampar are almost independent from his personal and professional life, the spiritual drawings of Josefa Štěpánková reflect her dramatic personal history.

After losing her beloved husband at the beginning of the First World War and then losing her daughter, Milada (Miluška), one year later of blood poisoning, Josefa turned to spiritualism, which was very popular in Bohemia and Moravia during the first decades of the 20th century. She used her spiritual abilities to communicate with her deceased loved ones: the drawings she created in the moments of connection were a form of message from another world to the world of the living. As such, they are signed with the names of Alois Štěpánek or Miluška, or later with the name of Josefa’s father, František. While resembling flowers, they are actually symbolic visualizations of the extra-terrestrial existence of the soul, and Josefa’s unstinting love for her husband and daughter. Their biology oscillates between botanical and carnal: their form and structure suggest internal organs with blood circulating through a riverbed of arteries and capillaries. At other times they bring to mind the contour-lines on a map of an unknown territory. Josefa Štěpánková often placed small portraits of her deceased ones into her drawings, or images of their spiritual, amorphous bodies. The faces grow directly from flowers, which sometimes contain messages, declarations or legacies of a religious nature. The leaves and petals are finished with simple details, in keeping with the aesthetics of the 1920s (ornaments of folk art, art deco or echoes of art nouveau). The drawings of Josefa’s great-grandson Tomáš Lampar were made much later, in a different form and under different circumstances, but in both creative processes, the flowers and forms are personifications of space, body and soul. They are entities beyond time, space and culture, entities we can perceive as universal symbols of life.

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Copyright Š 2015 CAVIN-MORRIS GALLERY

Cavin-Morris Gallery 210 Eleventh Ave, Ste. 201 New York, NY 10001 t. 212 226 3768 www.cavinmorris.com Catalogue design: Sam Richardson & Marissa Levien Photography: Jurate Veceraite Essays contributed by Randall Morris