In Jan Urant's current work, the human figure becomes a space for playful artistic expression. The exhibition's title, taken from a children's song, recalls the moment when a person learns to name the parts of their body: 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes...' Head, shoulders, knees, toes... The individual parts appear here as gestures of a special emotional nature. Painting becomes a language that can express what words cannot. As the work searches for boundaries, it transforms into emotional anatomy. Urant's paintings do not attempt to tell a story. Colour is a sediment of memories, with figures becoming maps of relationships and a changing topography of emotions. Every painting has a dreamlike quality. Urant's figures lose their gravity and float between reality and imagination. Jan Urant has lived and worked in London for a long time. The British scene is therefore a natural environment and source of inspiration for him. His paintings share with the local figurative tradition a sense of the ability to translate personal experience into colour. In line with this tradition, he sees the figure as a medium that primarily conveys mood.
Jan Urant - Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
Forthcoming exhibition
