quotations
I am a part of my art, but not the decisive force. The more I want my paintings to be just what they are, the more they are everything. My painting started out of love for nature and the art that was before me.
From the original landscapes, I followed a path from chance towards something over which I have control. Towards a result where I am certain about why it occurred. My development led from randomness towards the understanding of an elementary order. Every painting has its origins in the one before it, the future painting in the present one.
Since 1960, I have been striving to achieve greater objectivity. At the beginning, strict programming that practically eliminated randomness suited me for my work. Now I can see a higher degree of objectivity in chance.
It would be prudent to erase the contrast lines between subjective and objective creation because both processes occur in parallel and cannot be separated. Even though I use systems in my work, it is paradoxical that they are the result of my intuition.
In my work I was constantly discovering something new; I created a continual, uninterrupted sequence that, with small digressions, I still work with to this day. One could also say that each painting starts in the previous one, the next painting starts in the current one, the next painting starts in the current one. It is just like in nature.
Randomness does not exist “in and of itself”; there are only extremely complex, changing and unpredictable relationships. There probably is some “higher order” that we cannot grasp, but can sense even more profoundly. Each random process is dependent on elements that are capable of creating relationships.
The structure is formed by elements that mutually interchange their positions. From this, there arises the immanent life of the painting itself: something is happening, it is not merely dead decoration.
The entire structure is an organic unit built precisely according to the rules that have been selected. Rotating one of the elements in the basic programme means transforming the entire structure. I think it is clear from this that this is not a matter of composing the surface, but creating elements that can be programmed and creating programs that can form the basis for creating Structures. The Structure is not confined by the edge of the painting, but continues in all directions.
I am not going against anything, but after something. I now have the feeling that nothing is standing in my way. I am standing in an open field, all directions are open, the light and wind is coming in from all sides.
I´m a born landscape artist; what I like doing best is observing nature, people and anything that´s alive. In the course of my artistic development I got the feeling several times that I was betraying landscapes in Structures – when I went over to Structures and experimented with all the things that could be done so there would still be some sensitivity there. However, Structures had no direct point of contact with nature. But the Lines, when the trees turn yellow about two months from now, then everything is thoroughly connected, paintings and nature, and it´s a great joy for me. I already know that all the while I´ve been working with Lines I´ve really returned to nature again. Even though the approaches are completely idiotically complicated and rational and cold – even with that kind of system, I still end up doing even freer things like those proper to nature, as if we were brothers.
Randomness as an instrument for the construction of lines and a change in their character and spatial relations: for me this is the strongest expressive material that I have managed to reach so far. This process connects me with everything that I perceive, think, experience. My feeling, knowing and recognising is reflected in my paintings.
I have the sense that I am always doing the same thing, expressing one idea – my amazement at nature, my joy in life.
Quations from Zdeněk Sýkora Interviews and Zdeněk Sýkora 90