Hypernaturalism is a form of painting based on sensory knowledge. Its founders are Vilém Balej and Ryan O'Rourke, who attended the atelier of Vladimir Kokolia at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, where they are both regarded as legends. The computer devil Ryan loosely cruises between old and new media and computer codes. His characters and landscapes are fluid and volatile, presenting themselves in a reverse mode of sorts. The portraits, nudes, genre sceneries, urban landscapes and religious motifs of Vilém Balej are not an imitation of the already existing, but rather a reconstruction. Kateřina Šeda once said to Vilém that he paints as if he is burping and since then he hasn’t painted any other way. Painting is not a reflection of reality; it is built on a grid of modernity of Mondrian and Malevich. It creates a different world that looks much more accurate and exact than ours.

The exhibition is curated by Martina Vítková.