Jakub Dolejš
At 27, this recent émigré from Prague has landed squarely on his feet in Toronto. An artist who can paint as well as squeeze the shutter release, he creates oversized photo tableaux, confident historic narratives involving costumed models set against skilfully rendered backdrops. In his hands, the past is subtly recreated with an eye to exposing contemporary mores. Particularly appealing is his pair of tableaux showing Napoleonic soldiers in anti-heroic off-moments. Doubled over in front of a simulated 19th-century alleyway is a young infantryman in the process of being sick, presumably with fear. Dolejš’s sense of the circularity of human affairs is also translated into a mountaintop scene inspired by Caspar David Friedrich’s famous painting Wanderer, in which a frock-coated gentleman is seen from behind as he surveys a majestic vista. In Dolejš’s version, the fellow has gotten down to business: he has taken off his coat and started sketching the lush landscape. So convincingly has the artist entered into the romantic sensibility, it’s hard to accept that he wasn’t copying an actual painting by the master.
— Betty Ann Jordan
September 4, 2003 to October 11, 2003
Angell Gallery
890 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario
Phone: 416 530 0444
www.angellgallery.com
